


oh darkness (i wanna sing your song forever)

by devils_trap



Category: Far Cry (Video Games), Far Cry 5
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Branding/Scarification, Canon-Typical Violence, Dubious Morality, Knifeplay, M/M, Manipulation, Marking, Mind Games, Minor Character Death, Miscommunication, Possessive Behavior, Power Imbalance, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Rough Sex, Serious Dubcon, Sexual Coercion, Stockholm Syndrome, Unhealthy Relationships, blatant abuse of italics and Emphasis Caps, capture bonding, dark au, jacob dirty talks........a lot......., staci pratt gets his manipulative little wings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-14
Updated: 2018-05-27
Packaged: 2019-04-22 17:28:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 15
Words: 100,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14313633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devils_trap/pseuds/devils_trap
Summary: Staci might have lost his last hand, but this new one is proving to be as interesting as it is fucked up. There's no way out of this. Survival, pure and simple, is in his sights, and he now knows how to secure it.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Vrunka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vrunka/gifts).
  * Inspired by [My One And](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14238411) by [Vrunka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vrunka/pseuds/Vrunka). 



For the first month of his captivity with Jacob Seed, Staci Pratt holds tight to the hope of rescue.

Even with the starvation and the beatings and living in filth. Watching the other prisoners around him succumb to their wounds, to hunger, to each other. To him. Vertigo from the empty stomach and low blood sugar, hands shaking around the grip of the knife thrust into his hands. His heart thundering as he's forced to fight for the right to survive, each day a new enemy, like he's on some fucked up game show. A gladiator in Jacob's fucked up coliseum.

Wolfing down canned dog food or old, mostly raw meat because it's all they'll give him and he _has_ to eat something, his uniform pants so loose now he has to punch a new hole in his belt to keep them from dropping when he moves.

Sleeping on damp earth, waterlogged with piss and tears and blood, back against his prison bars so his cellmates can't get the jump on him.

Bound to one of Jacob's chairs, picture after picture of wolf and visceral and death as a cultist punches him in the stomach, in the face, over and over under Jacob's watchful, icy eyes.

Even with that God damn box, with its song and its training and its headaches and its nosebleeds and its _please no I can't do this, tell my body to stop, I don't want to kill them please please please._ Jacob's low, hypnotic voice whispering to him in his dreams, _train kill sacrifice weak weak weak c'mon Peaches show me what you can do._

The sick, shameful warmth that courses through his veins with Jacob's rare praise, addictive like heroin, leaving him fiendish for more even though it horrifies him, stiffening his dick despite his desperate pleading with himself, _fucking stop this is so fucked up I don't want this please God fucking make it stop._

Even then, Staci has hope.

He knows the rest of his team survived at least the crash, knows that the junior deputy is out there roaming through John's territory raising hell. Either someone will come for him, or an opportunity will present itself for him to break free. This can't be the end for him, he's too god damn young and the world doesn't work like this outside of shitty Hollywood action dramas.

So he stays vigilant. Does what he needs to survive, no matter the cost. When Jacob tells him to kill, he does it. When Jacob throws bowls of mystery slop at him, he devours it all. He watches the exits and the clocks, the sunrises and sunsets, the patterns in Jacob and Jacob's men, for weaknesses to exploit in their routines. No detail is too small, it'll all aid him in his escape, whether it's by himself or in tandem with the efforts of the junior deputy and their people. He's a cop for fuck's sake, and a god damn good one. He just has to pay attention and survive.

He clings to his hope, cups his hands around it to keep the flame safe of the shitstorm his life has suddenly become.

It's either that or lose his mind.

-

John's dead by the second month, and so is something in Staci.

The news of his brother's death and Deputy Hudson's rescue has Jacob keeping him squashed under his thumb. It's an entirely different species of oppression than the cages outside. He doesn't leave Jacob's side unless it's to train or to shit, which he is now allowed to blessedly do in a proper toilet, and even then Jacob's within earshot. Ready at a moment's notice to swoop in and put Staci back in whatever place he wants him in.

Otherwise, he's Jacob's shadow, trailing him around the compound like a lovesick puppy. Jacob gives him jobs, little errands, to keep him occupied when he's not being tormented by training. A clipboard in hand like he's a fucking PTA organizer, keeping notes of what the other prisoners are doing, the comings and goings of certain supply trucks, how many guns and cases of ammunition Jacob's men bring in and out. Little details that are useful to Jacob, but mean fuck all to Staci without more pieces of the puzzle to connect them with. He'd been hoping to track what Jacob and his men do and don't do, hoping to use that in his escape, but Jacob has them shake things up, never has them fall into a set schedule. Whether it's to keep Staci in freefall or because he's paranoid that the junior deputy might be watching, Staci doesn't know, but it has him scrabbling to connect the dots, any fucking dots, to no avail.

Sometimes he's got shaving cream and a razor, keeping Jacob's high and tight both high and tight, or doing edge work on Jacob's beard. A sharp blade at Jacob's throat, or on his scalp, and Staci wishes, _wishes_ , he were strong enough to slit the bastard's throat, wants to bathe in arterial spray, rub it into his skin like it'd warn the rest of the universe to never fuck with him again. Stab it over and over into his eyes, the meat of his face, feels the urge of it beat inside of him alongside his heart, _thud thud thud thud_.

But he's not strong enough.

Staci is weak.

He's learned that lesson by now.

_Weak weak weak_

Jacob watches him lazily as he's groomed, makes him service him from the side instead of behind him so it's easier to keep tabs. His pulse never jumps, breath never catches, not even when Staci brings the straight razor up and over on accident, hands shaking from exhaustion, from ever present suffocating fear, from near starvation.

The blood rushes from Staci's face so quickly he feels faint with it. _Oh god, oh god._ There's a mark on Jacob's neck, to the left of his Adam's apple, a swathe of his beard lobbed away. With horrified, bugged out eyes Staci watches as blood wells to the surface in slow motion and then beads down his neck. Seeps into the collar of his dirty gray t-shirt, already stained with some other poor bastard's blood.

What's another bloodstain to add to Jacob's collection?

Staci might piss himself.

Jacob just continues to watch him, blinks at him like a cat in the sunshine. He's sprawled out in his chair, legs as far apart as they'll go, one arm lazing behind him, the other resting draped over his crotch, head still partially tipped back. The wind coming in from the open window before them rustles his hair, and when a cloud breaks a beam of sunlight bathes him in its rays, shines off his wet, pink lips and his foamy, bloody throat.

With one of his massive, calloused hands, he presses two fingers to the wound and brings them back tacky and red red red. Scrutinizes them like a child would a bug, then returns his gaze to Staci, and without breaking eye contact licks them slowly, slowly from root to tip. His stare drills holes into Staci, nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, a wolf with its meal in sight.

Pink lips, pink tongue stained red. When he exhales, Staci inhales the smell of the iron in his blood.

Staci's stomach is in knots, but he can't afford to puke up what little he's been given in the last day so he convulsively swallows, over and over and over. Throat clicking with the excess saliva pooling in his mouth. The straight razor drops from his grip but he doesn't feel it bounce off his boot, hear it clatter to the ground. The edges of his vision are black and wobbly and he wonders, hysterically, if Jacob would punish him more or less if he were to piss himself and pass out. Bastard would probably be flattered and smash him into the ground anyway, break some more of his ribs, maybe his nose, his traitorous hand.

“S-S-S-Sir, I...I didn't—I'm s-so- _sorry_ , God, pl—” Staci's hands are up, shaking furiously in front of his face. Palms on display in a deescalation tactic the Force taught him, as if there's any way to deescalate this fucking trainwreck. He takes a step back, desperate to put space between them, but immediately hits the radiator attached to the wall behind him, falls back onto it a little. Ringing in his ears and ice in his veins as his head clips the wall. He doesn't feel it, can't over the pounding of the blood in his terrified rabbit heart.

_Trapped trapped trapped oh god oh GOD_

“Get back over here and finish the God damn job.” His voice low, dead even; he does not yell, and somehow that's worse. Yelling Staci could deal with, but Jacob's cool detachment is the harbinger of _very bad shit_ for Staci.

Staci knows enough not to beg, though.

Tears well in Staci's eyes and he gingerly clamors off the radiator, legs wobbling and knees clicking together like a newborn colt. When he bends over to retrieve his tool, his fingers shake so badly he drops it again and again. Doesn't notice when the blade catches on his fingers, the webbing between his index finger and thumb.

There's a scoff from above him, and before Staci can even register the noise over the buzzing in his ears, Jacob's boot is squashing his fingers into the concrete floor. A yelp rips its way from Staci's lips, but Staci knows not to try and free his hand.

He's learned this lesson before, too.

Lessons, lessons, lessons.

“Pick up,” a pause, “the God damn,” another, “razor.” He meticulously exerts more and more pressure on Staci's fingers until Staci fears they might shatter, pain radiating up his digits where the bulk of Jacob's weight resides, through his palm, to the center of his wrist where the toe of Jacob's tactical boot sits. If Jacob breaks his fingers, he can't finish the task—that'll mean training for days, losing himself in the Song, coming to in a room with dead Resistance fighters, blood tacky and drying on his hands, his gun. His face. “Have I made myself clear?”

Furiously Staci nods his head, almost smacks his nose onto the concrete below in his fervor. Wills all of the resistance out of his body until he's practically laying on the floor, pliant and spineless. If he could manage to turn over and show Jacob his belly, his throat, he would, and the thought _burns_ through Staci like acid. Tears cloud his vision but he does not cry, and he swallows bile down repeatedly.

_Weak weak weak_

“Y-Yes, sir, s-sorry, sir—”

“Be quiet now,” Jacob hisses, and bit by bit he removes his foot from Staci's hand.

Staci stays like that, body low, until Jacob is seated once more. A servant bowing until their master returns to their throne.

He wills his hands still and somewhere within himself finds enough of his wits to get them to comply. The sharp edge of the razor is still wet with cream and Jacob's blood, the foam red-pink. For a beat Staci stares at it in his hands, his betrayer, his possible ally. Turns it over in the sunlight and watches it glint.

But he's weak.

He returns to his spot beside Jacob with slow, measured steps, approaches him like one would a spooked animal, never showing him his back. But Jacob is never spooked, never fazed. He watches Staci until he's pressed beside him and then gazes out the window, critical eyes surveying the mountains outside his compound.

Staci rinses the foam and blood off the razor in the small metal basin stationed on the table next to them. Clean once more, like the last minute or so never happened. He returns the blade to Jacob's throat, and scratches upward carefully, making his mark time and time again.

After several minutes in a tense silence, Staci sometimes holding his breath until his head is dizzy with it, he is one pass away from finished when Jacob speaks up.

“Do that again and I'll fucking kill you,” he says simply, still watching the wind dance through the tall grasses outside. Tone once again even, like they're having a simple pleasant conversation, he the patron at Staci's barbershop. “Am I making myself clear?”

-

Staci sleeps on a cot barely an inch off the ground in Jacob's war room. There's a spot on the ground where Jacob's blood from the Shaving Incident ( _capital fucking letters, Pratt_ ) seeped into the unsealed cement floor. When Staci's laying down, it's practically at eye level.

Jacob keeps him tethered to the radiator, handcuffed to it. Like a dog on a lead in the yard. The spots he rubbed raw the first couple of times with his new nighttime bracelet have long since healed, scarred over pink-silver. The easiest way to sleep with it is on his back, arm draped over his head, and though he never used to sleep that way—preferred on his stomach, arms crossed beneath his head, ideally naked—Staci never used to do a lot of things before the Whitetail Mountains.

The bed itself is not much. He's got a scratchy off-white blanket and a single, squashed pillow, yellowed by age and use. The thick olive industrial cloth of the cot squeaks, though less and less every passing day under Staci's diminishing weight.

It's practically palatial when compared to the muddy, disgusting ground outside.

Technically it's Jacob's quarters slash war room, but Jacob would actually have to _sleep_ for it to be his quarters. He uses the bed to lay things on, his jacket or his boots or his rifle, but seldom spends any time in it trying to sleep.

Emphasis on trying.

Jacob wears military fatigues with _J. Seed_ embossed on the chest, so it doesn't take a genius to guess where the root of his problems lie.

He has nightmares when he does manage to crash, tosses and turns and talks in his sleep. Calls out orders, gives affirmative answers to unseen superiors. Fights with memories in his head, lashing out at the air around him, sometimes punching the wall his bed is pressed up against until his knuckles are bloody with it. He's only asleep, if you can call it that, for a maximum of three hours before he's up again. With weary bones he'll sit up, stocking feet flat on the ground, bare, scarred chest heaving up and down, jostling his dog tags.

In the moonlight pouring into the room Staci can just make out how haggard he is. The bags under his eyes and the delicate graying of hair around his temples. Scars all over his chest with ages that vary, some so old they're only seen silvery in just the right light. Others, like WRATH etched above his right collarbone, and PRIDE along his rib, are much more recent. LUST, on his right lower hip just above the waistband of his pants, similar to Joseph's.

His nightmares broadcast his age, but the only viewer around is Staci.

By the time the sun rises, Jacob will imbibe enough caffeine to give a racehorse a heart attack, and he'll look good as new.

Staci watches him those nights that he tries to sleep, that his body gives in to one of its basest needs only to be rejected by the demons in his head. Hyper-vigilance robs him of the ability to sleep soundly anymore, and he wakes as soon as Jacob starts thrashing, which is usually shortly after auburn hair hits its pillow. Afterward he can't sleep, keenly aware of Jacob prowling around the room.

He's always on, has to be ready at the drop of a hat, but it's exhausting to be going at all hours. He doesn't know how Jacob does it, and something like pity swims in his gut for the other man. It disgusts him just like the shameful rush he gets when Jacob praises him, and he futilely wishes he could purge himself of all emotion until he either gets rescued or dies.

Jacob is thrown off kilter after his nightmares, and it's the only time Staci gets to see his very own God of the Underworld knocked down a peg. A sliver of humanity exposed in Jacob's reptilian exterior. He gets up on legs just the slightest bit unsteady, and moves to stand before the window, rough hands braced on the windowsill, head bowed. Staci watches the light catch on the dog tags around his neck.

_SEED_

_JACOB_

_672-07-6438_

_O-_

_CHRISTIAN_

They don't speak, and while Staci watches him, Jacob never looks down at Staci, even with him lying so close. Staci knows that Jacob is aware of being watched, though. Knows it in the way his throat clenches and his fists form beneath his blankets, above his head; some intuition warning prey that a predator is near and alerted to their presence.

He's glad Jacob never addresses him on those nights. Staci doesn't know what he'd do if Jacob noticed any other emotion than fear in his eyes.

-

The other men often wolf whistle at him, _aw there's Jacob's little bitch wonder if he holds his dick for him too probably all he'd be good for miserable little faggot look at those dick sucking lips give us a taste precious we're all family here._ Grab their crotches at him when Jacob's face is turned, grab for his when Jacob's back is to them. They watch him with hunger and malice in their eyes, and though everyone in Eden's Gate has taken vows of celibacy, most of them were done with fingers crossed behind their backs.

Those times, Staci is relieved that Jacob never lets him stray far. Nonetheless Staci keeps even closer to Jacob on those days, all but knocks shoulders with him, and that little fact doesn't escape Jacob's notice.

Nothing escapes Jacob Seed.

Certainly not Staci.

-

Three months and some change, and Staci is scrapping the bottom of the barrel on hope.

He snorts at the thought, of hope. Of anything other than a silver nighttime bracelet and constant fear, disgust with himself _weak weak weak_. Hides his face behind his clipboard when Jacob looks up from his desk and cocks a brow at him.

“Something funny, Peaches? Share with the class,” Jacob says. He steeples long, thick fingers before him and leans in, like they're about to share a secret.

 _I'm never getting out of here_ , he wants to say, delirious in his misery.

“Nothing, sir. It was nothing,” Staci quietly says. Shakes his head a little so black hair, so much longer than it used to be, _so much time three months three months_ , can hide his eyes, the only shielding he can manage.

Jacob leans back, arms crossing on his chest, legs spreading beneath his desk. “We keepin' secrets now, Peaches? Gonna hurt my feelings leaving me out in the cold.” He pouts at Staci, plush pink lips pushed forward, eyebrows turned down, cold blue eyes shimmering with false hurt, for a moment before a sound booms from his chest.

It takes a second for Staci to realize it's laughter.

He's heard Jacob sneer before, watched his lips twist into a cruel smirk as he wound up the music box, _only you only you only you_. But genuine laughter? Staci wasn't even sure he was capable of it.

“Ah, Peaches, lighten the fuck up. It's a beautiful day out, I just got word that your precious Deputy is taking a stroll down The Path. Birds are singing and shit. When's the last time you had a little fun?” Arms uncrossed, he shakes his left one so his sleeve slips up a little, revealing his watch. “I'd say like...three months ago? Or is it almost four now? Been a long fucking stay at casa de Jacob, huh.”

_Three and some change, three and some change._

“I asked you a question,” Jacob says, just as quietly as Staci had.

Mouth dry like the desert, Staci fruitlessly licks his lips. Opens his mouth, clicks it closed. Like a ventriloquist dummy, and it's Jacob's hand up his back, in his chest cavity.

“Which question would you like me to answer? Sir.”

Dumb, so fucking stupid.

Jacob's lips quirk upward. He studies him a little, flicks blue eyes up and down Staci's body. He's lost so much weight that his uniform no longer fits, so he wears a pair of jeans much smaller than his previous size. He thinks they belonged to a Resistance fighter he killed, so he doesn't think about it. On his chest is one of the off white sweaters the Eden's Gate group are famous for, emblazoned with their starburst cross.

All of a sudden he's up, and it takes everything in Staci not to scramble backwards. In a flash of green fatigue and crimson hair Jacob is nearly flush against Staci's body, so close Staci can smell his sweat, the coffee he had been drinking, the deodorant soap he favors. Their toes touch, Jacob's desert fatigue tactical boots pressed to Staci's black, standard issue Department boots, the only piece of his old life that still fits anymore.

“Any of them,” Jacob breathes, practically against Staci's lips. Warm and moist against his face. “Be a good boy and _enlighten me_.”

He stands before Jacob, rooted to the spot yet quivering. Tremors wrack his body, and there's no way for Jacob to not notice that, his weakness. He desperately searches Jacob's face for any hint as to what the fuck this is.

_good boy good boy Be a good boy_

His entire body sings with it.

_Good Boy Good Boy Be a Good Boy_

Staci's disgusted with himself, but his brain no longer opts for his input. He shivers particularly hard and sways a little, grips Jacob's wrist for stability because his body is on fucking autopilot. Opens his mouth to say God knows what when the door to Jacob's quarters is rapped on. Flies away from him to the windowsill, that God damn windowsill, braces his hands on it like Jacob does at night. Chest heaving, sucking in lungfuls of air and looking everywhere but Jacob.

Jacob snorts and calls for the person to enter.

There's a whitetail in the tall grasses outside the window a ways up the mountain. It munches happily on the vegetation around it. Its ears twitch once, twice, and then it raises its head. Seems to lock eyes with Staci, stare in the knowing way only animals can. It blinks, ears twitch again, and then lowers its head again.

-

Four months nearly on the nose, and the news breaks.

The junior deputy is a fucking _Angel_.

The compound around them is in chaos. Contraband alcohol is passed around. Men laugh and sing hymns and sway together. It's a joyous affair.

Staci's world is Ending.

From the balcony of the war room, Jacob gives the news through the speaker system. Staci sways beside him, tears in his eyes.

“I would like to be the first to inform you that _Rook_ , as the Resistance calls her, is now part of the Family. Faith and her Bliss have secured her support, and we welcome her to our Cause. I know the Father has particular rules about indulging in alcohol, and some other, heh, choice activities, but it's a God damn Holiday. Enjoy yourselves, but do not get sloppy. There's still work to be done.”

Staci's vision fades in and out. He's conscious of his body moving, but he's not aware of where or why. The sun is no longer on his face, and he can distantly make out a door being closed. Two locks being turned, a few seconds time between them.

Ears ringing like Jacob had cranked the Box, but there's no Song.

There's Nothing.

“Sh, sh,” Jacob whispers, breath on him again. Warm, dry hands cup his face. His thumbs swipe at Staci's cheek, then drift down to rub wetness onto his lips.

Tears. Staci is crying. He's managed to hold them at bay every time before but now...but Now....

This is the End, isn't it?

“Sh, Staci. Sh. She's at her Home now, where she belongs. Like you've been along, isn't that right?”

And it's the first time he's heard his first name in four months. Sometimes Deputy, sometimes Pratt, sometimes Peaches; never Staci.

The levee breaks.

Staci's chest heaves with the sobs leaving his body, mourning his friend, his sanity, his Hope. Knees weak, he collapses to the ground, not even registering the impact, the burn and sting that should be there.

Jacob goes to the ground, too, albeit with much more composure. Gracefully folds long legs beneath himself, sits on his feet. Keeps Staci upright on his knees. He crowds in close to Staci, touches his face, his neck. Brings damp fingers to his own lips, reveals in the taste of his own little victory.

“She'll stay with Faith, and you—you'll stay with me. You're mine, aren't you, Staci?” Jacob whispers, peppering Staci's damp face with kisses. Voice as soft and reverential as Staci's ever heard it. “C'mon, Staci. Say it. This is Home, you're Mine. Say it.”

What choice does he have? He's all out of chances and his last Hope is somewhere in the fucking Henbane, Blissed out of their mind. He's Weak, too Weak to free himself from this, too intrinsically bound, too warped, to determine up from down.

He's Lost, in so many ways.

“Th-this is Home,” he croaks, eyes squeezed shut. Tears force their way out with the rest of his resistance and he shudders when he feels Jacob's lips, his tongue, collect them. “I'm Yours.”

A growl sounds before him, and he has just enough time to open his eyes before Jacob is maneuvering him onto his back on the floor.

He doesn't fight it. Instinctively spreads his legs to make room for Jacob on top of him.

Jacob had always been bigger than him, taller and with more weight, more muscle, but it has never been as apparent to Staci as it is right now. His size dwarfed Staci, his body weight pressing him into the floor. Blocking out all of the Light. Warm, so warm, burning Staci up.

“You're part of the Family, now. Won't let you go,” Jacob says. Their foreheads are pressed together, their noses, and with a little nudge of his nose to Staci's, he urges Staci's eyes to meet his own. The sound that leaves him when their gazes lock is primal, guttural, like it was somehow wrenched from Jacob against his will, and Jacob surges forward with his mouth to devour Staci, crushes their lips, their teeth.

There's blood in his mouth, and it belongs to both of them. Their essences on the most basic level blended together, inextricable. Staci rolls the taste on his tongue then swallows hard, swallows Them.

Jacob kisses like he means to swallow him whole, the big bad fucking wolf. His tongue is in Staci's mouth, one hand in his hair, the other fluttering at Staci's throat, squeeze release squeeze release. He shimmies his hips forward, encourages Staci's hips up, up, his legs 'round Jacob's waist, crossed behind his back.

A rioting part inside of Staci is screaming at him to fight back, to protest, to do literally any fucking thing but _this_. Jacob's dick is hard against him, rocking him into the floor, and it should make him want to peel his skin off, combust, grab the machete Jacob carries on his belt and end them both.

It does, but it also Doesn't.

Staci rips their mouths apart, turns his face away. He breathes raggedly, tears still cascading down his face. Jacob's mouth is on his throat, warm and wet, kitten licks of his tongue against his skin.

“You've been so Good, Staci,” Jacob whispers, petting his scalp, the side of his face. “So strong.”

Damn him, damn him, damn him. Staci's body sings with it even as another sob leaves his body. The force of it makes his chest ache, fingers curled rigid against the floor.

Over the sound of his own despair, Staci can make out hymns and cheers.

“Don't fight me,” he urges. Frantic kisses pressed into his jaw. “You can't afford to be my enemy any longer. I'm all you have now.” His teeth, snapping at Staci's throat. Sucking marks into his flesh, brands for the world to see.

As if the ownership of Staci's miserable life was ever up for debate.

_Jacob's little bitch_

He should've known he was never going to escape the Whitetails alive.

Jacob bumps their noses together, scratches their beards, and it's so weirdly, startlingly intimate that Staci keens with it. Reminds him of former lovers, and while some of them might have tied him up, held him down, men and women alike, none of them kept him captive and tortured him for four months.

“Let me in,” Jacob urges frantically, breath ragged against Staci's skin, hips still steadily churning against Staci's own hardness. “Let me in, let me in, let me in.”

He does.

God help him, he does.

He's never going to get him out again, is he?

Staci turns his face back in towards Jacob, and Jacob's back on him before his head's stilled. Their kiss is urgent and forceful, like Jacob is trying to climb inside of him, more clicking teeth than meeting tongues. He's making so many sounds above Staci, appreciative and hungry, demanding more and willing to take it by any means possible. Staci's delirious with this new aspect of their relationship—fuck, a _relationship—_ this new _power_.

Look how desperate big, strong Jacob Seed is for little old Staci Pratt.

Everyone always said that John was the talker, John was the dramatic one. But Jacob Seed is equally, if not more so dramatic. Using his words as weapons just as his fists, his knives, his rifle. And no one loves the sound of their own God damn voice more than Jacob Seed, always going on and on, giving intricate speeches like a peacock showcasing its feathers. For fuck's sake, part of his torture routine is a song from the fucking 50's.

Staci might have lost his last hand, but this new one is proving to be as interesting as it is fucked up. There's no way out of this. Survival, pure and simple, is in his sights, and he now knows how to secure it.

He pulls them apart once again, and Jacob protests against his cheek. His hand shakes when he lifts it to Jacob's hair, surprisingly soft and light between his fingers. Jacob pushes into his hand and stares into his face, blue eyes feverishly bright.

 _Forgive me_ , Staci thinks to no one in particular—to Rook, to Hope County, to himself.

One last tear escapes, and Staci's vision finally clears. “Fuck me, Jacob,” he whispers.

The world seems to narrow down to just the two of them. No hymns, no cheers. No God here. Just their animalistic rutting on the floor, just Jacob's lips and teeth and tongue and his desperate, needy groans.

Like so many times before, there's a tongue in his mouth and a hand ripping open his jeans. And this, this Staci knows. This Staci _excels_ at.

Jacob is Staci's just as much as Staci is Jacob's.

Staci will make sure of it.

Eye for an eye.

Staci throws everything he has at Jacob, dragging his nails down his clothed back as he humps upward, rubs their dicks together. Another wounded sound from Jacob, and Staci is ripping Jacob's shirt up and out of his pants, desperate to drag his nails down skin, feel it tear and bleed under his fingertips. The first rake of them downward has Jacob near howling into his throat, his hips pumping into Staci's, scooting him up the floor with each thrust.

He does it again and again and eventually his fingertips are damp with blood.

In a flash, Jacob hauls them both upward, carrying Staci like he's a ragdoll, a caveman with his prize. He bounces on Jacob's hard mattress once, elbow cracking against the wall. Jacob's rifle, previously laying across the foot of the bed, clatters to the floor.

Jacob leaves it where it lay and instead starts pawing at his clothes, frustrated noises clawing out of his throat when his belt buckle refuses to cooperate. Then there's a hand on his, warm and still, and Jacob watches, enraptured, as Staci quickly and efficiently unlatches his belt, pops his button fly, and un _ziiiiiiips_ his zipper. He's not wearing any underwear beneath, and auburn hair blossoms from the v of his opened jeans, runs a trail up his flat, chiseled stomach, scarred and marked just like his face, his arms.

“Take off your fucking clothes,” Jacob hisses, removing his top layers and then his bottoms, bouncing from one foot to the next as he removes his boots. He throws them behind him, and Staci watches as they bounce and come to a halt on his cot.

The effect he's having on Jacob makes him giddy, like Bliss roaring through his veins, all of Jacob's sparsely metered out praise given on loop for his ears and his alone. His body burns with it, skin ruddy and sweaty, and for a man who's supposed to be a Prophet's Herald, his touch scorches like the sweetest damnation.

While he undresses, Jacob roots around in the nightstand beside his bed for something. His intended goal Staci can guess, but it must not be within the nightstand because Jacob curses beneath his breath, spares a look at Staci, and moves to his feet.

Jacob is all hard muscle and breathtaking scars, pale spiderwebs of them from grenade blasts and burns, so many burns. Chemical burns and regular burns mar practically every available inch of Jacob's upper body, sometimes in big clusters, other time small swathes of angry red and white wrinkled skin. He's got knife wounds and bullet wounds, on his shoulders and his waist, his back. A tapestry to his _wrath._

The most surprising thing, more than Jacob's scars, the tone to his body, how his fat cock bounces and the firm muscles in his ass move as he heads to his desk to root in its drawers for his prize, is the _freckles_.

God help him, the freckles. Staci wants to know what they taste like.

Staci had once idly suspected that he had them—red heads usually do, right?—but they're _everywhere,_ some visibly warped beneath his scars, others untouched, pure, red like his hair. On his chest, beneath wiry red fur, down down down the plains of his flat, muscular stomach. Along the tops of his thighs, washing down his legs, climbing up his back. His shoulders, God his shoulders, the muscles shifting as he makes a pleased sound and pulls a bottle from his desk. They're absolutely covered. Dark freckles and light freckles clustered together on the very top and tapering as they trail down his arms.

Fuck, they're even on his feet.

Jacob holds the bottle up for Staci's inspection, waves it slowly back and forth, taunting. He stalks back to the bed, hips swinging obscenely, dick bobbing with every step, like an alpha wolf about to mate its choice bitch.

Warmth pools in Staci's lower stomach, cock twitching against his stomach, leaking. He maintains eye contact while he simultaneously tugs at his dick and wantonly spreads his legs.

Done with his peacocking, Jacob is on him in a flash, a flurry of motion. The lubricant is carelessly opened and dribbles down Staci's flat chest, and just as he's registering how cold it is, there are fingers wriggling inside of him, damp and cold and insistent.

“Let me in,” Jacob urges again, panting against Staci's shin, face angled down so he can watch as his fingers, one then two then three, breach Staci's body.

It's too much too fast, it's been so long since Staci's been touched like this, but he can deal with the burn as long as there's lubricant. Had Jacob's sadistic streak carried over to even this, if he had tried dry or with just spit, he would've ripped Staci in two.

The burn is his penance, he supposes.

He screws his eyes shut and moans like the whore he is for Jacob, spreads his legs wider, hooking his left over Jacob's hip, pushing his fingers deeper inside. Drawing him into his own little spider's web.

He's going to make this the best sex Jacob's ever had, have him coming back for more and more. Wedge himself inside Jacob's existence and build his fort there. Make Jacob cum harder than he ever had, better than any wet cunt or any other tight asshole.

He's going to be so good, nothing will ever touch him again.

“Fuck me, Jacob, fuck me fuck me fuck me. Show me I'm yours.”

Jacob's fingers pop lewdly free of Staci's body, and for a second Jacob just fucking _smirks_ at him from above.

So Staci rolls his eyes and grabs him by the dick, stroking lubricant up and down its shaft, rubbing the flat of his palm over the sensitive head.

Never before has Staci been so bold in Jacob's presence, and it startles Jacob for just a moment before the thrill catches up. Having your prey cry and submit all the time can get a little boring, but as Jacob swiftly hikes Staci up by the ass, bending him near in half, he has the split second revelation that this is feeling less and less like predator versus prey.

He presses his cockhead against Staci's hole, rubs it along the rim, and gauges the reaction on Staci's face. The flush is high in his cheekbones and his forehead is sweaty, black hair curling damp against his skin. Big brown doe eyes egg him on, glassy and feverish as Jacob's own.

Blissful.

The push in _burns_ , unrelenting and giving him no time to stop and catch his breath, punches it out of him until all that's left is _Jacob Jacob Jacob_ and the bursting white in his eyes. With fingertips stained red, Staci grabs handfuls of Jacob's ass and eggs him deeper, harder.

Jacob is even more vocal Inside.

“Gonna fuck you so full of me, everyone'll know you're mine. My little bitch, fuck, _fuck_.” Jacob braces his weight with his left arm to the side of Staci's face, secures his right behind Staci's back, and fucks him with all he's got. The bed smacks into the wall in time with his thrusts, his dog tags jingling as they dangle between their sweaty bodies. Staci tugs him down by them, fists them around his hands until they're almost choking Jacob, and bites his way into Jacob's mouth.

When they break free for air, Jacob pants wetly against Staci's temple. Absently presses his lips against the skin over and over, rubs his face into Staci's damp hair like a god damn animal. “Paint your insides with so much of me you can taste me for days. Fuck you so good you can't sit, can't walk, without gagging on the taste of my dick in you.”

Jacob lowers Staci's hips just a touch. “Fuck your fist for me. I want you to come with my dick in you.”

Staci obliges, because he's desperate to cum, because Jacob keeps ramming his cockhead up and down his prostate, because if he doesn't soon he's going to fucking die. His palms are wet with sweat when he wraps his hand around his dick, and it's been so long since he's even touched himself like this, since before Hope County and Eden's Gate and all this bullshit. He's not going to last very long, but if he's played his hand correctly there'll be time for longevity later.

Punched out, wounded cries carve their way out of Staci's throat. He's going to be so fucking sore later, Jacob like a machine, never breaking stride, like he's trying to drill all the way inside of Staci. Like he doesn't already fucking live there, like he didn't take up residence in his skull four months ago.

“Gonna bring Rook here, would you like that, huh? Get her to watch as I rail you. Show her how much of a little whore—fuck—you are for me.”

“Oh God, oh God.”

“Wanna invite Joseph to watch? Not really—ugh fuck—into that, but bring along the whole flock, who fucking cares? Everyone's going to be able to smell my come leaking out of you, might as well—shit—let them watch.”

“F-fuck I'm gonna cum,” Staci whines, and as soon as the words are out of his mouth Jacob's is on his, mapping his teeth with his tongue.

Then, suddenly, the world is white white white. He rips his mouth from Jacob's and shudders brokenly, mouth opened in a silent cry as he paints their stomachs, his fist, in rope after rope of his release. He's spent in more ways than one, and he's drowsily glad that Jacob is supporting them both because _fuck_ he can't feel his legs.

Staci's orgasm and the fluttering of his walls has Jacob's eyes rolling back. He fucks into him over and over again, shoving Staci up the bed and the bed into the wall. Dimly he hears plaster tinkling to the floor over the sound of his own panting breaths, of Staci's cries at the abuse his prostate is continuing to endure.

“Say it again,” Jacob hisses.

Staci doesn't even have to think about it. “I'm yours,” he breathes, and clenches hard on Jacob's cock.

Teeth sink into Staci's neck, right above the meat of his shoulder, and he whines in pain as the skin is broken. Blood floods Jacob's mouth as he fucks his release, his seed, deeper and deeper into Staci's body. Copper and salt on his tastebuds, the scent of their combined musk heavy in the air. Jacob pumps his hips once, twice, thrice more and then comes to a shuddering halt above Staci. Sweat beads down his forehead, drips down his nose and onto Staci's heaving chest.

With herculean effort, Jacob slides his softening cock free and flops down onto the bed beside Staci, weary to his marrow. He keeps his eyes closed as he catches his breath.

Their power dynamic has shifted, and Jacob can feel it charging between them. He's opened an entire different kind of box with this, Pandora, and fuck if that thought doesn't get him revving again. He rolls the taste of Staci's blood and sweat around in his mouth, intoxicating and salty-sweet.

“Fuck,” he huffs.

“Fuck,” Staci agrees.

-

Staci jolts awake some time later. He's naked and so, so sore, but his muscles still sing with latent pleasure. He's on his stomach, and he blearily realizes three things:

One, he's not handcuffed, not in his cot.

Two, he's in Jacob's bed still.

Three, Jacob's also still in his bed, and while he's not yet thrashing, he's got the stirrings of a nightmare brewing.

The sky outside the window is pitch black, and as Staci's eyes adjust to the dark, he can see the full moon high in the sky, bathing the mountains in a celestial white. White like bliss.

Staci realizes a fourth thing:

When they passed out after whatever the fuck animalitic fucking _that_ was, the day had still been pretty young, not even five o'clock in the evening yet. Even fucked out, Staci is still a pretty light sleeper, but he only stirred just now, well after midnight, which means Jacob, too, slept that entire time.

“Huh,” Staci breathes. He scoots in as close to Jacob as he dares, takes in the scarring and freckling on his back. The red, angry claw marks crisscrossing up and down his shoulderblades. With his hand flat, he presses feather light between them and rubs soothing circles into Jacob's skin.

He expects Jacob to elbow him in the face while still in the thrall of his nightmare. Maybe wake up and order Staci back to his cot, handcuff him to the radiator once more with his cock and balls still dangling free.

What he doesn't expect is a great, heaving shudder. For Jacob to scoot back into Staci and continue on sleeping, still dreaming but slightly less fitfully.

“Huh,” Staci breathes again. He settles in to watch Jacob sleep.

Checkmate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> serious, serious shout out to vrunka and their story "[my one and](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14238411/chapters/32830965)". i've literally read it a bajillion times already and couldn't get the image of pratt and jacob out of my head. i guess this is my fucked up homage to them? cool :-)
> 
> the title is in reference to a william control song ("the monster"), and most typical u.s. dog tags have LAST, FIRST, SOCIAL, BLOOD TYPE, RELIGIOUS PREF. on them. the ssn number i entered for jacob is, ironically, a randomly generated one from georgia - first try and all.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning for racist + homophobic language

He's alone when he wakes up.

Staci sits up against the wall and stretches, and the sound of his joints popping practically echoes through the room. It's the first time he's been well and truly alone since Before all of this shit happened, and while Staci's thrilled by the aspect of privacy, as soon as he realizes Jacob managed to slip out of the bed without waking him _and_ willfully left him by himself, the muscles in his stomach begin to cramp.

There is _no way_ he misread any of what happened last night. No possible way.

And yet, he's still alone.

Outside Jacob's window, the sun is steadily trekking its way up into the sky. Not yet midday, but still much later than Staci's slept in in months. The space Jacob had occupied the night before has long since grown cold, and Staci gnaws viciously on his lower lip as he gingerly, so gingerly— _fuck my ass hurts, Jesus Christ—_ climbs his way out of bed.

 _Maybe he had reports to do, or – or went to see Rook for himself?_ Staci muses as he dresses in yesterday's jeans. His muscles feel heavy and his throat _aches_ where Jacob bit him, and idly he rubs at the bitemark on his throat as he moves to the window.

There is less activity going on down there than usual. Two supply trucks parked in the depo, one loading while the other unloads, and a small group of cultists going about their normal duties. Staci watches as one man drags a dead prisoner from the pens, pulling the man's leg at such a weird angle Staci imagines he can hear the _pop! o_ f dislocation. His face is pressed into the filth of the ground, and as he's pulled blood follows, a swathe of crimson in a sea of thick, soupy brown-black.

Staci watches and watches and watches. He must stand at the windowsill for twenty minutes before his brain kicks back online and reminds him that he's _fucking alone in Jacob's war room_.

His first thought is to snoop. Rifle through Jacob's papers, his drawers, for anything he could add to his arsenal. Rook might be dead for all intents and purposes but Staci is not, and even though last night seemed to have shifted something within their relationship _(there's that fucking word again_ ) _,_ Jacob's absence leaves him feeling exposed and adrift. At the windowsill, he wraps an arm around his stomach and lifts his other hand to his mouth, chews on his nails and cuticles.

Maybe nothing changed. Maybe Jacob's just that possessive and talkative with all of his lovers.

_Bedmates, Pratt, not fucking lovers. He couldn't love you and you most certainly don't love him. Bedmates. Enemies with benefits, even. Not fucking lovers._

He quickly decides against snooping—too many risks, what if he disturbs something and Jacob finds out? Plus, who the fuck would he give the information to?—and then against his second thought, which is to take the pistol Jacob keeps in his desk drawer and attempt to escape.

Even with the compound's courtyard only sparsely active, Staci knows he'd never make it.

Where would he even go? Jacob had raved and raged about the Resistance, trying to pinpoint where the Wolf's Den was so he could go in and clean house, but he had never actually _found it_. Rook had liberated Fall's End, he could try going there—but Staci had no idea where he was going, and his trek would be mostly on foot until he could find a car or a four-wheeler to snatch safely away from the compound.

What if Jacob came back and he was gone?

The thought of being hunted down by an enraged Jacob and a pack of judges scared him shitless.

 _Probably smell his cum in you anyway,_ a voice in his head whispered, and it sounded suspiciously like Jacob. _See the bitemark on your neck. You've got no defensive wounds, no glassy eyed stare—they'd know you did it willingly, let him breed you like the fucking whore you are. That you came with his dick in you._

The third thought, _get the gun and fucking kill yourself_ , he mulls over for a second and then quietly dismisses it. Like turning a page in a book. He didn't get this far just to take himself out, but _God_ every time he feels like he's getting his footing, the rug's ripped out from beneath him.

His stomach growls, rumbles against the arm wrapped around himself.

Does he risk going to get food? He's never been to the Mess without Jacob. He doesn't even know if the others would serve him, and what if the men who harass him are there when Jacob isn't?

_If you escaped after That and went to the Resistance then they might not be able to smell Him. They'd buy your trauma even though you disgust them._

Staci shakes his head, clears the etch-a-sketch of his mind.

He decides to risk a shower, instead. Entry into the pot instead of a full stakes bet.

Jacob's washroom is as spartan as the rest of his quarters. White walls and white tile, white porcelain and chrome fixtures, but at least it's clean. Private. No one would dare mess with him in here.

And the water, oh the water.

It's the first hot shower Staci's had in months.

The pressure isn't the best but _God_ it feels good on his abused muscles. He just...stands there for a while, as long as he dare, letting the water cascade down his body, through his hair. Rubs his hands along his abdomen, his arms, through sluices of too hot water, watches as his dark complexion pinkens.

Even if nothing Changes now, letting Jacob fuck him was well worth this.

_Not that you didn't get anything out of it, Peaches, think of how hard you came._

The shampoo Jacob uses is a 2-in-1 that smells lightly of mint, and Staci laughs to himself near hysterically as he works it into his hair. The stuff that he used to buy was _expensive_ but worth every god damn cent, and he'd have been caught dead before using something as cheap as this. He'd shower in the mornings with his latest conquest and wash their hair for them, listen to them groan as he worked his fingers into their scalp, steam and the heady scent of the lather permeating the room. They'd tell him later how much they loved his shampoo, how soft their hair was after, and even if nothing came of their tryst, could he please tell them what brand it was and where they could get it?

The smile on his face circles down the drain when Staci begins wondering what happened to the bottle he had just bought. His home. His old life.

Four months.

Did they mark his home abandoned? Repo his car?

He bets his Abuela is worried sick.

 _Maybe she's dead,_ the voice says. He screws his eyes shut and leans hard against the stall wall. _She was already ailing Before and with you gone, she'd be alone, no one to take her grocery shopping or to the doctor or speak with her in her native tongue—no one to care. Hijo, nadie me habla español además de ti y lo extraño el sonido. ¿Cantame, por favor?_

It's the first time since the first few weeks that he's dared to think about everything he was ripped away from. Those thoughts he's managed to lock away, to shield both them and himself from the suffering of the Whitetail Mountains, lest his longing cripple him. Or, worse, trickle through his thoughts and poison all he held dear. Jacob is eerily good at smelling weakness, conditioning the good right out of you.

Wearily, he washes his face, his body, with Jacob's bar soap.  
  
He does not cry, and the memory of Jacob's body, sweaty above him, musk and the scent of his deodorant soap, and Staci's enjoyment of it all, robs him of his appetite.

He rinses off then dries himself with the towel hanging from the bathroom door, still damp from Jacob's shower. It's scratchy and stained faintly with blood, and Staci's suddenly glad Jacob isn't very big on creature comforts—no soft towels or fancy, expensive shampoo. He rubs himself down until his pinkened skin feels abraded, then hangs the towel over the shower rod so it can dry. From the medicine cabinet above the sink he fetches Jacob's deodorant and applies it beneath his arms.

Naked, he returns to the bedroom and finds it still empty.

He's not sure if he's happy or concerned about that.

Clean for the first time in days, though, Staci hesitates before the clothes he wore yesterday. He grimaces as he smells them, the body odor and sweat and grime staining the fabrics, and wonders if it would appeal to Jacob's possessive side if he wore his clothes, or if he'd punish Staci for stepping out of bounds.

Staci decides to press his luck.

All of the clothes in Jacob's wardrobe look the same, dark jeans and darker shirts, all faintly stained with god knows what. Staci picks a gray t-shirt out at random and slips it over his head. The damn thing swallows him, and he folds an arm over his stomach again, quietly lamenting the loss of his muscle definition, the body he worked hard to keep in shape if only for vanity reasons. Now he's whippet thin, not quite starvation gaunt— _not anymore, anyway—_ but too lean for his height.

A loss of ten or so pounds would've been a blessing. He had been having trouble losing that, anyway. But he's way passed ten down now. Doesn't want to think about how high that tally goes, now.

That rules Jacob's jeans out of the equation, not to mention the other man has half a foot or so on him. Staci's of average height but Jacob is well over six foot and built like a brick shithouse. He'd have to roll the legs up and punch another hole in his belt to keep them up and not look like a fucking idiot. A child playing dress up.

Reluctantly he slips his old pants back on, thankful that they're at least in better straits than his shirt.

Without even thinking about it, he ends up at the windowsill again, bare feet slapping quietly against the concrete floor. Idly he picks at the chipping white paint beneath his hands, _scratch scratch scratch,_ chunks of it flaking up beneath his nails to reveal light brown wood beneath. Wonders if Jacob will notice.

_Jacob Jacob Jacob_

A car door slams close and his eyes dart to the courtyard, searching for the sound. Looking for a shock of red among a see of long, shaggy brown. The supply truck that had been unloading has finished, and with a wave from the driver to the man beside a pallet of provisions the truck belches to life and takes off. Clunks down the dirt path and then out of sight.

He watches it go longingly.

-

It's been roughly three hours and Jacob hasn't returned.

Staci's stomach is practically eating itself, half hunger half nerves, and he's scratched three chunky, jagged lines into the windowsill, like a bear swiping at a tree to mark it. His fingertips are chalky with rubbed off paint, and taste bitter in his mouth when he moves on to the next finger to anxiously gnaw on.

-

At the five hour mark, Staci's stomach is still empty yet full of lead.

It's roughly two in the afternoon and he hasn't seen hide nor hair of Jacob since early, early this morning. Jacob's back pressed to his chest. His palm between freckled shoulderblades, rubbing smoothing circles into trembling, warm skin.

Staci scrubs at his eyes as he sits on the cot, leans against the radiator. The metal of it distracts him as it digs into his shoulder, his side.

He does not stare at the empty bed.

-

At about four o'clock, he decides to head to the Mess, anyway. Before he heads out he fishes his Sheriff's Deputy button-up out of a pile of reasonably clean clothes. With it held before him, he thinks about removing Jacob's t-shirt. Putting it back in the drawer like he never had it on, tucking his foolishness away from sight. No one saw him in it so did it really even happen?

Both shirts drown him, but they give him a nice, protected feeling as he descends the stairs and heads in the direction of the cafeteria. He weaves through cultists who do not notice him, do not spare him a passing glance, and he's both relieved and dismayed by that fact. The camouflage is beneficial and though he does not want to be noticed, per say, the loose clothing and the isolation has him feeling a bit like a ghost.

Maybe Jacob killed him in his sleep and he's haunting the place.

The Mess is nearly empty, lunch having ended hours ago. He can hear people in its kitchen preparing for the communal dinner, pots and pans and utensils clanging and clacking as they work.

Staci is unsure about the protocol here.

He's deciding whether to proceed into the kitchen or just turn around when a head pops out of the kitchen. A man Staci has seen but never spoken to looks around for a moment before settling on him, and the emotions on his face shift rapidly before settling on placidity.

“You hungry?” he asks, and his voice is quiet, nasally in his northern accent. Young, younger than most of the Eden's Gate members, with short, cornsilk blonde hair and none on his face to speak of. Rich brown eyes, thin lips and a ski-jump pointed nose. Cute.

He'd be an outlier if Staci couldn't see the wounds on his exposed forearms, sleeves rolled up exposing them to Staci and to God. If he didn't know that beneath his thermal top he had at least one of the seven sins carved into the meat of him, if he couldn't see the letters PR peaking out from the collar. “Didn't see you at breakfast or lunch. Jacob either.”

He's warmed by the observations, both his stomach and his cheeks. He doesn't think about Jacob's absence. Of how cute this man would be under any other circumstances.

Of how his attraction could be seen as an offense. Disloyalty, infidelity.

Shyly he nods, and when he beckons him forward Staci slowly slinks right up to the doorway.

He holds open the door for him, but Staci stays just shy of the threshold. There are several people in the kitchen working, women and men talking among themselves as they work. There's a radio playing softly, a woman's crooning voice. The smell of cooking potatoes and some kind of seasoned meat make his stomach growl.

Too many unknown variables, too much risk.

When he sees his hesitation, he smiles kindly at him. It makes his cheeks burn, stomach twist and flutter anxiously. Kindness is not something one encounters in Jacob's territory, and he's fighting heavily with himself not to get lost in it. Wonders achingly where the catch is. “We've got some leftovers from lunch. Do you...do you want to sit down?”

Staci rubs at his neck, shuffles his feet. When he does, the man before him shifts his gaze down from his face to his neck before zeroing in on the bitemark, red and livid. Pulsing in time with Staci's other, more hidden aches.

Staci averts his eyes before he can see the recognition in the other man's face. The possibility for pity, another thing seldom found in the Whitetails.

_branded dirty little slut jacob's jacob's jacob's_

“I'll, uh. I'll bring you something,” the man says instead, and Staci nods once curtly.

He waits against the wall, eyes down.

The other man reemerges a few moments later with a metal tray, on it an apple, a cup of what looks to be water, a roll of bread, and a bowl of stew. His eyes are kind, _still kind where's the pricetag what's Staci owe_ , as he leads Staci to a nearby table and sets the tray down.

“Leave it when you're finished.” He smiles, rubs at his neck like Staci had. “I'll, uh, leave you to it?” Hesitates beside Staci as he sits, hands between his knees. Shifting slightly on the unforgiving bench beneath. Then all of a sudden he's gone, and Staci is alone in the Mess with his tray and the sound of the kitchen door swinging inward and outward on its hinges, cutting off the sound of music, of conversation, then letting it fill the room until the door stills and he's truly Alone.

He does not think as he wolfs his food down, so quickly his stomach aches for an entirely new reason. The stew is lukewarm and the roll bland but it's _food._ At least the water is crisp and cold, and while lukewarm the stew has chunks of carrots and beef in it.

The apple he saves for last. Briefly he considers bringing it back to the room with him and squirreling it away. Weighs it, bright and red, in the palm of his hand.

He ultimately decides against it.

What if today was a fluke and Jacob doesn't let him leave his side again? Would he be punished for having food?  
  
God, what if it rotted before he got the chance to eat it?

Juice drips from his chin as he chews. The apple is sweet and crunches near obscenely with every bite, and Staci sorely wishes for another one. He eats it all, core and all—something all of his previous partners had _hated_ that he did, but his Papa had done it all his life and it was something Staci did now without thinking. There's the brief temptation to lick the drippings from his fingers, but while not full Staci is satiated enough to not revert to animalistic tendencies.

It's his fourth month here not his first, after all.

His excursion from the room has gone well, and as Staci rises from the empty tray again he wonders about the hidden cost of all of this. All of his other interactions in the Whitetails have been excruciating, about survival or discipline or just the simple, cruel pleasure of a man's spirit fracturing at your fingertips, and none of them have been without a price—his blood, his energy, his conscience. His body most recently.

The trek back to Jacob's quarters is as nondescript as the walk from them. Staci allows himself to walk a little slower, to take his surroundings in more fully.

The pens are dirty, horrible, and the only things that live there are despair and broken men, but the compound is different. White tiled floors have been mopped, open sun-filled rooms have been swept, and fixtures have been dusted. Food is prepared and eaten as a group; the cult seems more of the Family they claim to be. It's all very spartan, very simple, just like Jacob's quarters, but it's _clean_ , none of the raving madness some of the buildings had had in Joseph's compound that godforsaken first night. Warped Bible verses etched into buildings, bloody handprint accent marks. Even from the relative safety— _pft, safety_ —of the helicopter, Staci could smell the madness.

It's not as potent here, inside these walls.

Had things been different and he had joined the cult willingly, Jacob's compound is probably not where he would have ended up, but maybe he would have found community here.

It's a terrifying thought.

-

The sun is going down and Jacob's still not back.

On the cot once more but this time with one of Jacob's books, Staci curls into himself and flips another page of a beaten paperback copy of Homer's _Il_ _iad_. It's not something Staci expected to find on Jacob's bookshelf, but the man talks a lot and alludes to many things, pop culture and the classics included. He's got other stuff on his shelves, nonfiction books on war and science, mass markets fictions with spines broken in from multiple reads. A few library books that'll never be returned.

Staci finds himself comparing titles, despite himself making similarities between them. There's a huge tome volume of Tolkien's _Lord of the Rings_ , pages yellowed and worn. Older than the copy Staci has. Dante Alighieri's _Inferno, Paradisio_ and _Purgatorio_ in separate, thin volumes, with the most wear on _Inferno_. Milton's _Paradise Lost_ is there twice, once in a nearly destroyed paperback and again in a fancier leatherbound edition. _The Jungle_ and A _tlas Shrugged_ and _1984_ and _Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?_. A few science fiction and mystery novels Staci knows the plots of but hasn't read, himself.

Staci idly wonders if Jacob attended college before or after the military, then forces the thought from his mind.

_Stop humanizing him. Stop stop stop._

-

The sky is dark and Patroclus is dead when Jacob returns.

Staci looks up but Jacob does not look down.

The smell of alcohol, firewood, and a mismatched sweetness waft through the room as Jacob shrugs out of his fatigue jacket, draping it over the back of his desk chair. His hair looks windswept and his scarred cheeks have a new pinkness to them, pinched by the coming autumn's chill, darkened by alcohol.

He moves about the room without acknowledging Staci, and with his heart in his throat Staci doesn't say a word. His emotions are traitorous in his head, his heart, crying out for Jacob's attention, for his approval, for anything, and he berates himself from behind the book even as he continues to desire Jacob's recognition. They war inside him.

He sinks his teeth into his lips, his cheek, to keep his mouth shut.

After what feels like an eternity, Jacob stops at the windowsill and sees the scratches in the wood. He traces them for a few moments before he snorts, and he's shaking his head as he finally, blessedly, looks over at Staci. “Scratching at the door to go out to piss, huh, Peaches?”

It rings in his ears like a needle scratching a record.

It stings, and it stings even worse because it _shouldn't fucking sting you stupid God damn idiot what did you think yesterday was, huh? Fuck and chuck, a conquest._

“See you took some liberties while I was gone,” Jacob says. He leans against the sill, hip cocked against it, and looks Staci up and down from where he lay on his cot. “Hm. Knew I should've put you back in your cage and handcuffed you before I left.”

Staci wills the humiliation not to burn so hotly in his face. Fails.

“Aw, Peaches. Did I hurt your wittle feelings?” His lip raises in a smile that's more of a snarl, a bearing of his teeth. Staci can smell the whiskey on his breath. “Think after last night I'd fuck you good morning? Make _love_ to you or some gay shit like that? Gimme a break.”

All of a sudden Staci is exhausted.

It takes a concentrated effort not to slink backward when Jacob approaches. Then they're nearly at level, Jacob crouched beside him. Wobbling a little. Off balance more than he is after nightmares.

Staci's never seen him drunk before. Always calm and calculating; in control of everything around him, never anything less.

“Got to admit though, you were pretty fucking fantastic last night. Tightest ass I've been in in weeks.” His fingers pet Staci's hot cheeks as Staci looks away. Dances them down, down, down to the bitemark. Scratches lightly on the scab so the smell of fresh blood tickles Staci's nose. “Wanna know what I've been doing? C'mon, ask me.”

Drained and in no mood to draw out Jacob's games, Staci quietly asks, “What have you been doing?”

He sways forward a little then shifts down to sit on his knees, nowhere as graceful as he was on this floor yesterday. Hard to believe just twenty-four hours ago they had started their coupling just a few feet away from this very cot.

_Fucking. Breeding. Don't attach emotions that aren't there, Pratt._

“Went out to celebrate. Not every day you beat your enemy, y'know? Kinda wish it had been me to break 'er, but I'll let Faith have this one. Stopped by her place. Thought about bringing you along.” He pets his fingers down Staci's cheek again and hums thoughtfully. “Pass you around, maybe, since you seemed to like it so much.”

 _God_ it stings. Salt in wounds he really wishes he didn't have. Longs for the Box, the Song, to take him away from this.

“You sore?” Teeth bared again, grinning ear to ear. “You miss me?” When Staci doesn't answer, his fingers travel to his throat, hand clenching lightly around his airway. “Be a good boy, now. You miss me?”

“Yes,” Staci whispers, Adam's apple bobbing against the warm vice, and hates that it's not totally a lie.

“Aw, Peaches, that's so fucking sweet of you!” he crows, head thrown back in a laugh. When he brings his eyes back to Staci there's a blaze in them that worries him. Greek fire. “Met a girl at Faith's bonfire. Pretty little thing, barely twenty-one.” With the hand not still lightly bracketing Staci's throat, he rubs at his crotch. “Popped her cherry, I think. Rode me 'til she screamed and then just kept on bouncing.”

He works himself, breathing heavily through his nose, for a few minutes before releasing Staci throat. Then he pulls himself from the confines of his jeans and inches forward. “Wanna taste her?”

It's not a question, it's an order with a lilted voice.

The taste of him is musky in Staci's mouth as he takes Jacob inside, heady like a man but also tangy, distinctly feminine. Staci's done this before, the oral and the tasting of another person on his partner's cock, and before the excitement, the arousal, seared him alive.

His own dick is pitifully flaccid this time.

“Couldn't suck dick for shit, _God_ I knew you could, though. It's the lips. The hair. Just wanna grab you by the ears and _fuck_.”

So he does.

Staci represses his gag reflex as best he can. Risks placing a hand on Jacob's side to attempt to control the hips pistoning in and out of his mouth even a little. Tears well in the corner of Staci's eyes, and he screws them shut. Tells himself to make it good so as to make it quick.

When he hollows his cheeks and sucks hard, Jacob groans like he did the night before, like he's wounded, like Staci punched it out of him. He shimmies forward again, so undignified for composed, collected Jacob Seed, and takes Staci's face in both hands.

“Thought about you when I was in her, y'know,” he huffs. “Beautiful woman on my dick, shoulda seen the tits on her, the pussy, _man_ , and I kept thinking about some God damn skinny, faggy border rat, can you believe it?”

Jacob has forced him to endure countless tortures, murder and starvation and blows to his pride in infinite ways, but he has never been as cruel as in this moment.

“Ah, fuck, there y'go. C'mon, c'mon, look at me, lemme see those tears. Know they're there. Lemme see. Tasted so good yesterday.” He fucks his hips forward and then lets a hand dip to raise Staci's chin. Taps a finger once, twice against his temple, and the force of it feels like it rattles Staci's skull.

Pitiful brown-black eyes dutifully open. When a tear manages to escape, Jacob scoops it up, at the ready. He makes another guttural sound as he licks Staci's tear away, his tongue pink and shiny as he theatrically cleans his fingers. “There's the stuff, Peaches, there it is. Fuck you're so good at this. Should've made use of you a long time ago. Only thing you're good at, huh?”

Yes. Yes, and it hurts so badly to hear.

“You love it, don't you, y'little fag? Big cock in your mouth, all the way down your throat.”

Staci focuses on working his mouth, taking Jacob into his resistant airway. A _pop pop_ , two slaps in quick succession, are his reward. He pulls back, sputtering. Saliva dripping down his chin.

“C'mon, Peaches, don't be like that. You love this.” Musky precum glistens on Staci's lips as Jacob traces them with his cockhead. The moon shining in from the window, _that damn window hate it so fucking much_ , bleaches out all of the red from Jacob, makes him glow. “Open wide again, ah ah ah, there we go.”

It seems to go on forever, Jacob's drunken rambling and his unwavering thrusting. Staci focuses on the buzzing in his ears and just lets it happen, lets himself be used. He thinks about last night and then immediately stops, can't bare to think about how fucking stupid he was.

Betting against the House and thinking he'd win.

Thinking there was something in Jacob responding to him besides his hormones.

_Fucking stupid, God damn fucking idiot._

“Fuck, fuck, God there it is,” Jacob hisses, breath low. He inhales lungful after lungful of ragged breath, releases it heavily through his nose. The thrusts deepen, plugging into Staci's throat, and he lets the muscles flutter around Jacob's cockhead.

 _He's gotta be close_ , Staci thinks, and braces to not choke on his semen when it enters his throat at this depth.

But Staci's prepared for nothing. As he groans loud and painful, Jacob pulls back and out and shoots on Staci's face.

Staci should've taken idea number three earlier. Blown his brains out. Anything but this.

“What a pretty picture, huh? Dripping with my come, God, I should take a picture and send it to the Resistance. You're even wearing your Deputy's shirt, they'd shit themselves.”

Staci keeps his eyes closed as Jacob gets up and handcuffs his arm to the radiator, when he crosses the room and flops into his bed with a grunt.

“Excellent job as always, Peaches. See you in the morning.”

-

Staci does not sleep. He curls up as much as he can without his arm protesting too violent, and wipes off his face with his blanket. Tears blur his vision once more and he fights at first to not let them fall. Then he just concentrates on not being heard, stifling his sobs with his loose hand.

Jacob snores from his spot on the bed, something he doesn't normally do. His jeans are zipped but not buttoned, and his shoes are still on.

There's a gun in his holster. Buzzing in his ears again, eyes burning and all feeling gone, Staci considers breaking his thumb to slip from his cuffs. He'd be doing the world a favor, take Jacob out and then himself, _pop pop_.

He doesn't.

Weak weak weak.

-

Jacob has the stirrings of a nightmare sometime around one, two o'clock. His body shakes minutely and his legs stretch out, pull back in, messing up the bedclothes beneath him.

“John,” he whispers, “Joseph.” He groans like he's in pain and starts to pant, like he's hyperventilating. More little wounded sounds, and his face flinches a few times, body twitches like he's absorbing blows.

Staci watches, a silent witness.

He tells himself he doesn't feel bad, and the lie tastes bitter in his throat.

-

Staci's eyes are scratchy and his head and jaw ache. He counts his breaths in and out and listens to the birds begin their morning songs. It's strange that even in a place like this life continues on happily, untouched and unaffected by the trials and tribulations of humanity. Of the casual cruelty humans inflict upon one another.

Jacob stirs awake as the darkness begins to give way to light. Bruises beneath his eyes like the dark storm clouds rolling in around the compound. He does not look rested, but Staci doesn't even have the heart to take pleasure in it.

The sound of Jacob's boots hitting the concrete is soft, barely audible. He scratches through his beard, rubs his eyes with the heel of his palms. Stretches and pops his joints just as Staci had yesterday, awakening in that same bed.

His eyes aren't even open when he says, voice like sandpaper, “Morning. Sleep tight?”

The only reply he gets is a soft, shaky exhale.

“Ah, we're at this stage again,” he mumbles. “C'mon, Pratt, I know you're awake. Worked through you sleeping enough to know what you sound like when you're sacked out. Rough night, huh?”

“Yes,” Staci whispers.

Jacob hums thoughtfully. “I feel like something ran me over. Judging by your stoicism, I bet you wish it had. Am I getting warmer?”

Silence. Staci shifts around on his cot. The scratching of his clothes against the thick cloth of it is deafeningly loud.

“Would it help if I told you I didn't remember?” Jacob asks.

A heartbeat, two. “No,” Staci answers truthfully. Because he still would. Juxtaposing their first encounter and their second in his head even as they speak.

Jacob hums again, sage like. Seems to weigh the honesty in his mouth, swish it around to better get its taste. “It'd kinda be a lie anyway. Remember some of it, pieces.” He licks his lips. “You hungry?”

Yes. “Not really,” he lies.

Jacob stands up, and his joints begin popping and cracking again, pronouncing his true age. “Too fucking bad. Let's go, Staci,” he mumbles, and reaches for Staci's handcuff.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ womp there it is. 
> 
> my spanish is rusty af so correct me if i translated wrong.
> 
> thank you all for your comments, i've been so motivated by them i s2g
> 
> will start writing the next bit probably tomorrow after work!! at least three parts to this, i reckon. come visit me on [tumblr](http://boneforts.tumblr.com) and badger me into continuing my other stuff, too lmao


	3. Chapter 3

Jacob's one true creature comfort is _food_.

At the Beginning of all of this, being forced to watch Jacob gorge himself while Staci quietly wasted away was one of the worst things about his interment. It lingered around in his rattled, aching head, the edge of that particular injustice surprisingly sharp.

Being beaten and being forced to kill were traumatic and would certainly fuck him up for the rest of his days, but being forced to eat canned dog food while your captor ate fresh, steaming deer not a foot and a half away from you?

The dehumanization gutted him. Razor sharp talons curled into the meat of him, hacking him away, his weight and his sanity, with a surgeon's precision.

Jacob's judges had eaten better than him most days. Proving to Jacob that he could be useful, that he could have his leash extend if only just a touch, closed that gap most of the way.

Most of it.

The other cultists in his compound didn't eat poorly, but Jacob always made sure those in the kitchen went above and beyond for himself and his Chosen. Fresh meat and better spices. More time devoted to their dishes than the bulk ones the kitchen crafted for the riffraff.

In the Mess without looking at Staci, Jacob instructs one of the cooks—not the boy from yesterday, thank God—to bring him his usual pot of black coffee and two servings of his usual breakfast, which are already huge to begin with—crisped bacon and slices of ham, scrambled eggs blended with cheese, mushrooms and onions, with housemade biscuits and fried potatoes drenched in ketchup. Massive, huge portions. He's done it before, thrown all of that food down his gullet and then continued on to have a productive day while Staci struggled against the ever-looming lightheaded feeling that came with a tanked blood sugar.

Staci doesn't know where he puts it all. The muscle definition of Jacob's body is usually hidden by his clothes, but there's very little fat on him at all and his caloric intake is _ridiculous_ most days. Like he's a bottomless pit.

A black hole.

The familiar insult of it all feels more barbed than usual, and Staci wills his stomach not to growl and betray him any more than his previous actions already have. He'll get nothing until Jacob's finished one of the servings, and then Jacob'll call a kitchen worker over to bring Staci something minuscule in comparison—a fried egg sunny side up on toast (which Staci hates) or a small bowl of soup.

Keep them weak, keep them docile. Never strong. Not Staci.

Staci is too tired, too beaten down, to dwell on Jacob's cruelties any longer. His body still aches and his shoulders slump like they haven't since the Beginning.

The hot shower yesterday feels like a million lifetimes ago. Feels like fool's gold.

The sound of rain begins to echo through the Mess as it pounds down on the roof of the compound. Occasionally thunder rumbles in the distance.

Thunderstorms mean one of two things in the Whitetails: either everyone is in a frenzy, or the place slows to a crawl. Besides the sparse thunder and the faraway sounds of the kitchen, the Mess is quiet.

Usually this early in the morning there's at least _someone_ up, last night's guards getting a bite to eat before turning in. Hunting parties delivering their findings in exchange for sandwiches, stews. Once or twice, John popping in for fresh meats, going on and on about how piss poor his butchers and cooks were.

But there's no one in the Mess besides them, and that fact both soothes and frustrates Staci. There's no one else to occupy Jacob's attention, nor to draw Staci's thoughts away from himself, his misery, even if just for a moment. He angles his face down towards his hands where they sit folded in his lap, but quietly watches as Jacob hunts and pecks on the keyboard of an old Nokia phone. The damn thing looks so tiny in Jacob's giant paws.

Under any other circumstances, it'd be hilarious, an aged man unable to keep up with technology, even the outdated versions of it, but right now it just...Is _._

Staci wonders idly who he's texting. Joseph? Faith? The girl from last night that Staci sucked the taste of off Jacob's dick?

If Jacob notices his breath hitch or his uncomfortable squirm, he doesn't acknowledge them.

Jacob sits in the Mess with his back to the wall—always has to be able to see the door. He structures all of his major haunts so he has a visual on the exits at all times, something Staci knows is common in those who've served and seen combat, those with post traumatic stress disorder – and it's so much easier to attach to Jacob when the words are drawn out, none of the sympathies attached to the acronym PTSD, just the simple, straightforward meaning.

They're tucked into the same far corner they always are, and with the clean lines of sight and quiet atmosphere, Jacob tucks his phone away and straightens moments before the kitchen door swings open and two cooks emerge, both carrying trays with multiple hot plates of delicious smelling food.

One of the cooks is the man who took Jacob's order at the beginning, but the second is the blonde boy from yesterday. There's no sympathy on his face because Staci refuses to look at it.

Both cooks have delivered their cargo—an empty plate before Jacob, his coffee mug, silverware, and a glass of cold water included among the sprawling array of food laden plates in the center of the table—and have begun serving him an initial hearty portion. “I need another plate,” he says. He also does not look up, busying himself with unrolling his napkin from his silverware so he can drape it across his lap.

“Another...serving?” the first cook asks, his voice gruff, unlike the slightly high nasally tones of the blonde. Staci can hear him shifting his weight back and forth, unsure, as Jacob reaches forward for the pot of hot coffee he had requested.

“No,” Jacob says dryly as he pours the liquid into the mug, and you can hear the _you idiot_ in his voice as clear as day. “An empty one.”

It's no more clarifying than his first statement, but they nod just shy of eagerly and depart together. They return in less than thirty seconds, better hiding their confusion. Faces smooth and passive.

“Where...?” the blonde begins, and of _course_ he's the one with the plate.

Staci has but a second to guess where this is going before the ax swings.

“Put it in front of him,” Jacob simply says, gesturing to Staci with his fork.

_Should've taken option three when you had the chance, Pratt._

The indignity burns and burns in his face, crushes his guts like Jacob's stomping at his abdominal cavity again, like he had back in the Pens, the Chair, but he manages to stay stock still as the plate enters his line of sight.

Staci doesn't even need to look up to feel the waves of pity radiating from the blonde. He just hopes that Jacob can't. There's no way he'd be able to survive if Jacob had anymore ammunition in his arsenal.

_You fuck him while I was gone, huh? Seems awfully sweet on you, and I know how fantastic you are as a cocksleeve, but **you** know that I do not share. Wanna see what his intestines look like on the ground?_

In his haste to set it down and back away quickly, the blonde practically throws the plate at him. Slam dunks it onto the table. It rattles and rattles against the hardwood, clamoring for what feels like ages in Staci's ears before it's silent.

There's more silence for a heartbeat, two, and then the cooks begin to slink backwards once more.

Jacob's fist slams the table next, making Staci and the cooks flinch. The plate rattles once more before stilling. “Do I have to spell fucking everything out today? Thunder scramble your brains? Finish divvying this shit out and _then_ you're dismissed,” Jacob sneers. He gestures forward with his silverware, jabbing the tines into the air for emphasis.

There goes that fucking rug again.

The cooks spare each other a momentary glance before deftly heaping food onto the empty plate before Staci. The smell of it is heady so close up, and combined with Staci's blatant confusion, it's a feat keeping his body from swaying in his seat. When they're finally done, more food is sat in front of him than there's been in ages, and there's still some left over in the center of the table. All right within reach.

Another thought strikes him.

Is he going to be allowed to eat it, or does Jacob intend for him to sit like a sentinel with it right there, taunting him? Jacob had asked in his quarters if Staci was hungry but never said anything about actually letting him eat, and this food is way beyond his pay grade.

Staci's fists in his lap clench so tightly his knuckles blanch. Crescent bites in the flesh of his palms pulsing in time with the blood rushing in his ears, burning in his cheeks.

He keeps assuming he's found the deepest parts of Jacob's cruelty and then there he goes, pulling that God damn rug out from under Staci to show a secret compartment, a fucking bunker, beneath.

“Leave us,” Jacob commands. It sounds like he's speaking from very, very far away, and the quick footsteps of the cooks barely register, sound tinny in his buzzing ears.

_Should've blown your brains out when you had the chance. Never think things can't get worse because they always can._

The silence is choking between them as Jacob begins to eat. Staci doesn't move a muscle. He's dizzy with how poorly he miscalculated his actions, how his submission has seemed to sully him beyond repair in Jacob's esteem.

He should've been the one becoming the Angel, not Rook. Anything to escape this, one more injustice after the other.

There's a quiet hum from across the table that Staci barely makes out. Doesn't look up, just focuses on the sting in his hands and the twinkling darkness edging his vision.

Jacob's just swallowed heavily around a slightly too big mouthful of food when he leans forward and taps two fingers against the table beside the plate in front of Staci.

_Tap tap tap._

Not Staci's, just in front of him.

_Tap tap tap._

“You gonna eat or just stroke out on me the entire time? Seriously, you zoning out over there is freaking me out, and I did _not_ share half of my meal with you for it to just get cold and breathed on.” He very purposefully situates himself in his seat, then reaches for his mug of coffee. Blue eyes study him calmly from over the stark white porcelain.

You could hear a pen drop in the Mess at that very moment. No thunder, no workers in the kitchen. No breathing.

Staci's mind is screaming _trap trap trap_ as his eyes fly up to Jacob's. He makes no secret of his pitiful confusion as he searches Jacob's face over and over for the catch, like the answers Staci needs to decode this are hidden in the blemishes in Jacob's skin. Like if he reached across the table and touched those scars, the topography of them would illuminate the true nature of whatever the _fuck_ this is.

The food may not be poisoned but there's got to be a cost somewhere. Especially after last night.

Jacob's scarred face is cool, just shy of disinterested, and he says nothing as Staci's eyes rake over him over and over. He lets it happen. Takes a drink of his coffee and licks his lips as he sets it down. Pushes the mug towards Staci with the tips of the fingers, then gestures to it with his open hand.

Thunder rumbles, closer this time, ever closer, and the lights fade for a brief second.

There's a warning blaring in his head, and for one hysterical moment he thinks of his grandfather watching _Star Trek_ reruns in his bathrobe on Sunday mornings, the sound of the klaxon echoing through their tiny apartment.

“Staci,” Jacob says quietly, barely audible over the groaning of the sky, “eat.”

It's not an apology, except for how it is.

_Staci, eat._

Warmth gnaws at his inside.

_Staci, sorry._

Staci, not Peaches, not even Pratt.

_Staci Staci Staci._

The blood in his ears rushes and rushes, deafening like a cascade.

The mug jostles in his grip as Staci lifts it to his mouth. Coffee sloshes hot and wet against the thin skin of his wrist, and the burn of it is welcome when compared to the burn of Jacob's fiery gaze on him. He can't look away from the other man, physically rooted to the spot, and he watches Jacob watching him as he takes a small, measured sip of the bitter black coffee.

The lights flicker again.

It's not how he normally takes it—prefers it nearly blonde but only barely sweetened, strong—but it's the first time he's had it in months, and the familiar, rich flavor of it has him closing his eyes for just a moment, lost in thought.

Mornings in his kitchen before work when he was out of milk and had to settle for just drinking it plain, leaning against his counter in his boxer briefs. Hudson forgetting his order _again_ when she made a coffee run—he never forgot hers, still remembers it clearly, _pretty much all the sugar you can find and just a splash of half and half_ , the total opposite of his. Abuela's morning cup of bustelo steaming on the kitchen table, so dark Staci could see his reflection in it.

As per usual, Jacob rips him out of his head. Whether he's got no patience for Staci's memories or if he just misses the sound of his own voice, Staci can't tell.

_Maybe this is the only way the poor bastard knows how to say he's sorry, and this whole thing is making him anxious as hell. He's gotta be an ass to fulfill his role and break the silence._

“If you think that's good, try the eggs.” And he says it so simply, like the pendulum between them hasn't again just swung so violently that Staci's got vertigo. A swinging ax in an adventure film that comes _this close_ to decapitating him, but instead just comically buzzes some of his beard.

Staci calmly returns the mug to the table, managing to keep its contents inside this time. His mouth opens with an audible _click_ , and he _feels_ Jacob lean forward like he's eager for Staci's input—but nothing comes out. Staci's ears are ringing again and he wonders if it'll pour out of him like he's a God damn gramophone or something. Fill the quiet Mess hall with it, drown out the now near constant groan of thunder above them and the traitorous beating of his heart.

“Or you can just sit there,” Jacob mumbles. Bratty, like a teenage boy instead of a man in his early forties. Viciously he stabs at a piece of ham, then gets it situated on his fork and pops it into his mouth. The way he chews his mouthful is weirdly petulant, completely and utterly unlike stoic, collected Jacob Seed, and Staci has to tamp down _hard_ on the sudden urge to laugh like a fucking crazy person. Laugh until his face hurts with it. Laugh until there are tears pouring down his face and he's sobbing at the same time, emotions as twined and fucked up as the fear and warmth rolling in his stomach, hot cold hot cold.

 _It's not an apology,_ Staci reminds himself.

But it could be a really fucked up olive branch.

Some of the rigidity in his muscles leeches out of his body. He watches his own hand in slow motion extend forward, fingers wrapping around the handle.

Jacob stops chewing, his eyes the only parts of him moving. Flaying him alive.

He tries the eggs.

Jacob only has the one true creature comfort, and on it he spares no expense. They're not his Grandmother's but they're not _dog food_ , they're fluffy and flavorful and Staci makes a quiet sound of pleasure as he swallows. Licks his lips as Jacob had.

His stomach practically sings with it.

Jacob's breathing has deepened as he leans forward more, practically bent in half over the table. “Yeah? Good?”

“Yes,” Staci whispers. He licks his lips again, and he doesn't miss how Jacob's eyes desperately follow the motion.

A really fucked up olive branch from a really fucked up man. Starts and stops and misfires, but they get to their destination in (mostly) one piece.

The rest of their meal is silent. Jacob looks incredibly pleased with himself as he straightens back up to his full height and attacks his meal with gusto. At a much more sedate pace, Staci fills his fork time and time again, savoring the flavors of his breakfast on his tongue.

Occasionally Jacob drinks from his mug, his water, then pushes it towards Staci, his eyes drinking in as Staci does.

-

After they're finished, Jacob leads him out of the Mess without a word. Full for the first time in ages, Staci's restless night and the whirlwind of emotions in the Mess seem to catch up with him all at once. His eyelids feel heavy as he follows in Jacob's shadow, his steps slow and loose. Sleep drunk. He stumbles as they climb the stairs leading to Jacob's quarters. The possibility of falling and splitting his skull doesn't worry him at all, calms him, even. But then there's Jacob's grip around his bicep, a warm brand burning through his clothes. The cool metal of the rail pressed to his back the only spot on his body not suddenly awash in flame.

“You're dead on your feet,” Jacob tells him, quietly amused, as they come to a stop in the stairwell, and Staci is so exhausted he simply nods. There's no use in denying it when he suddenly can't keep his eyes open. “Did you not sleep at all?”

In his weariness, Staci doesn't even bother to monitor his mouth. He blinks up at Jacob and laughs quietly. It echoes brokenly in the stairwell, jagged edges amplified in the hush. “Couldn't. Not – not After,” he admits, and he's awake enough to feel freed and terrified by his admission. Untethered. “Watched you instead. You, uh, you had another nightmare.”

Unknown emotions flash through Jacob's eyes, and they're all so foreign to Staci, so frightening. Nowhere to go with Jacob pressed this close, penning him in against the wall, the rail.

Is his bill already due for breakfast? The periods between the grief and the reprieve so terribly, miserably brief.

“You're no good to me like this.” The words are gruff but his tone, still soft and humored, belie some of the meaning in his gaze that Staci couldn't decipher. He's gently squeezing Staci's arm, rubbing his touch into his skin. Warm, coffee scented breath on his chin, his cheek, drawing closer. The solid block of Jacob's chest pressed to his.

Staci lets his eyes flutter shut. “No good to you at all,” he murmurs. There's safety in the darkness behind his eyelids, and he surrenders to it as lips meet his own. He does not kiss back, but he allows himself to be kissed. Tastes their shared breakfasts in his mouth.

There's a sound against his lips, anguished. It vibrates against him, makes his mouth tingle. _Pain_ , Jacob's pain. The taste of it is even more unfamiliar than the food he'd just devoured. “Let me in,” Jacob urges, breathy and needy. Like the first time, on the floor.

_Let me in let me in let me in._

One hand tangles itself in Staci's hair while the other, the one around his bicep, slips down to clench, unclench in the fabric of Staci's shirt. A knee wedges between his thighs.

_Wanna taste her?_

It's all so fucked up.

Staci's emotions are in disarray, tangled like Christmas lights. He sobs dryly against Jacob's cheekbone as he turns his face away. Eyes squeezed shut so tightly there's colors bursting against all that black. “I can't get you _out_.”

Haunted, hunted.

The hand in his hair loosens, pets its way down his face and cups his cheek. Jacob turns Staci's face in to his, kisses him hard, tongue and teeth and wounded notes. Harder when Staci still doesn't kiss back. “Can't. Won't. You'll die first.”

That's what Staci's afraid of.

“You're mine,” Jacob whispers, right against his lips. A crack of lightning somewhere close, the rumble of thunder seconds behind it. It's so hot in the stairwell, sweat beading on Staci's forehead. Their heavy breathing echoes and shudders around them like a great beast. A living thing of godless origins. Cursed, damned. “You know it, you _said it_. Say it again, Staci. Say it.”

Jacob has won, time and time again, and he will always win. Even if some Resistance fighter stormed their stairwell and killed him dead, Staci would never get him out. He'd be in Staci's dreams. Flashes of red and fatigue green out of the corner of his eye. Every song off, not enough crooning, not enough Red or dizzy or out of control.

_Only Wrong, Only You._

“Please.” His voice is so broken, so unrecognizable. Warped and perverted like everything Jacob touches.

“Staci. _Staci_. Say it.”

“Yours,” he croaks, “only yours. Fuck. Fuck. Wish I was dead.”

Jacob hoists him up off the step, encourages his legs to wrap around his waist and cross. He's so strong, could snap Staci in two if he was merciful, but instead he pulls Staci tight against him, crushing him, and continues up the stairs.

The sound of the storm outside is even louder in Jacob's quarters. It fills up the room as he's deposited on Jacob's bed. When he finally opens his eyes, lightning sizzles through the sky, white and blue and Jacob's red red hair as he looms above Staci. Drinks him in, drinks him down. The sadness and the defeat radiating off of him in miserable waves. The confusion and his sick enjoyment of Jacob's attentions.

The black long sleeve shirt Jacob's wearing is hastily removed, and with a detached interest Staci studies his muscled physique as Jacob's dog tags fall against his pecs.

Had things, had _they_ , been normal, Staci would have found him to be beautiful, even with his scars.

Jacob crawls on top of him, and his body weight compels Staci to spread his legs like he did the first time, like a good little whore. Wrong and right war inside of Staci as he stares at the ceiling, Jacob's lips and tongue and teeth on his lips, his cheeks, his neck where the bitemark is.

Thunder rumbles, shakes the bed, as Jacob pierces his skin again, just slightly above and to the side of the first bitemark. Two of them, now, side by side, throbbing and aching in his skin.

Jacob rubs his face against them, his furred cheeks. When he lifts his face to stare Staci in the eyes, there's blood smeared through his beard and across his mouth, his nose.

Staci's very own personal demon.

“Did I tell you I thought about you the entire time I fucked her?”

Staci's very own personal Hell.

He struggles a little, then, tries to sit up. Doesn't quite know why because it's fruitless but _why won't Jacob just shut up and get it over with_. Be quiet for once in his fucking life.

“Beautiful, so beautiful.”

Staci doesn't want to hear it. Not about some beautiful woman with Jacob's hard dick pressed into his thigh. Hadn't he endured enough last night? He presses biting kisses into Jacob's jawline to distract him from another stupid monologue.

He doesn't expect Jacob to nearly keen and offer him his throat.

_Bite it out bite it out BITE IT OUT_

Emboldened, fucking stupid with it, dizzy and heartsick and fucked up in the head, Staci bites him on his throat as hard as he can. Brands Jacob like the fires and the bombs and all the Others. Like Jacob's branded him. The blood rushes into his mouth hot and syrupy, and he lets it run down his chin, into his hair, to stain the pillow and mattress beneath them. Wonders what kind of picture they make, mouths bloody and covered in sweat as they rut against one another.

“Fuck, that's so good. You're so beautiful. Wished it was you. Got so drunk, mmm, God, trying to get you out of my head.” The bed squeaks as it bumps against the wall. Staci distantly wonders if anyone in the compound can hear them. Has heard them. “All mine, Staci. I'd rip Hell apart to keep you.”

Jacob's hips pump into him raggedly. Staci matches his thrusts, too caught up in it all to fight it anymore.

“Fucked up, this is so fucked up,” Staci groans into Jacob's skin. Sobs with how good it feels. “I hate you so fucking much.” Hates himself.

“S'okay, ugh, s'long as it's forever. Fuuuuck, there it is, Staci, fuck.”

Pushed down, down into the mattress as Jacob comes in his pants, Jacob's breath hot and wet against his bloody throat. They lay like that for what feels like an eternity before Jacob shimmies backward and sits up on his knees. His chest heaves as he gazes, eyes half lidded and hair fucked out, down at Staci.

Staci's still hard. Aches with it.

Staci's waiting to be kicked into his cot and handcuffed. Blue balled, duped again.

Fool me once, shame on me, fool me twice—

His pants are off and Jacob's mouth is on his dick before he has time to even process it. The wetness and warmth of it all has Staci's back bowing taut, one hand fisted in the sheets and the other in Jacob's hair. He pulls them both hard and whines as he watches Jacob take him into his throat with ease.

Jacob's good at this. Jacob's done this before.

Jacob with his mouth full of dick is a fucking Revelation, and Staci intends to tell him as much.

“I like you so much more when you're too full of dick to spout your shit,” Staci hisses, and he groans from deep within his chest as Jacob stares back at him, hums happily around Staci's cock. “Wish your men could see you now. God, I hate you. Wish I hated you more.”

His cock slips free as he draws both knees up, and he watches, enraptured, as Jacob chases his dick up the bed. The tip of his dick bumps the back of Jacob's throat and then slides home, and he feels Jacob's nose in the soft curls at the base of his dick. Feels Jacob's filthy wet mouth drench his balls, saliva slipping down his crack.

“You look so good like this, you fucking bastard.” With a sob, he shakes as Jacob's throat muscles work him. “So beautiful,” he echoes, barely audible.

Jacob pulls his mouth free with a lewd _pop_ and wraps his fist around Staci's shaft. Quick, full tugs twisting around Staci's sensitive head. Flat of his thumb pressing just shy of painful against the sensitive bundle of nerves right beneath his crown. Jacob licks at his sac, pulls one ball into his mouth and rolls it on his tongue. The gentle threat of his teeth against his sac's seam.

God, it feels so fucking good.

He moves to the next ball and gifts it the same treatment. Staci writhes with it, the tandem suction of Jacob's mouth and his huge, rough hands working him with precision. The sight of Jacob on his cock, so desperate for it.

“I wish you were dead. Wish I was dead.”

Jacob's mouth is back on his dick and Staci doesn't give him any warning before he comes. He watches as Jacob sputters for a second and then just _give,_ breathes heavily through his nose as he works his throat to swallow all that Staci gives him, pliant as he's ever been.

As Staci unfurls his legs one more, stretching them partially beneath Jacob, his softening cock slides free one last time. There's wet breath on his hip, then, Jacob's arm curled around his waist, the other draping across his chest, his heart, to rest fingers against his still bleeding throat.

 _Cuddling_.

His voice is scratchy, _fucked out_ , when Jacob chuckles. “So dramatic, Pratt. Spin your top and watch you go, huh, Deputy? Kinda doom and gloom at the end but _God_ do you taste good. S'the most I've heard you talk our entire time together.”

The exhaustion swamps him again. Full and satiated and done with the games, Staci begins the process of extricating himself.

They might fuck, but they don't bask in the afterglow. The first time was a fluke.

Staci learned his lesson the second time. Time for the cot.

Their sweaty bodies slip together as Staci gets one leg free, but he doesn't manage the second. Jacob is up and over him before he can manage to liberate the rest of himself, and his strong arms cage Staci in against his chest, a whole different kind of Pen.

Jacob's little spoon.

“Don't,” Jacob says. _Stay,_ he means.

“Jacob—”

“Don't.” Voice soft against the backdrop of the rain. Softer kisses to Staci's wounds. They overlap in almost a heart shape, his bites. “Just—”

Just.

Another cruelty, the glowing warmth spreading through his veins, at the words Jacob says, can't will himself to say—says anyway. Staci shakes his head in attempt to clear it all away. “No, no, no,” he pleads. “You can have—”

“There is none of you I do not already have, Staci. I won't give it back. Go to sleep.”

-

Staci wakes up a handful of hours later and he is alone once more.

The misery, albeit expected, crashes into him bodily like a wave, and he wishes he could succumb to it. Wade into the quiet of it and give in to the water's demands.

_Fucking God damn bastard. Fucking God damn idiot._

He claws his way from the bed, snarling, body throbbing. The sheets are still damp with their sweat, dirty sheets made dirtier with tacky blood. Heart, his stupid fucking traitorous heart, aches in his chest as he begins towards his cot, furious with himself.

Finds it gone.

No handcuffs attached to the radiator. No scratchy, low down piece of shit cot.

Just a blood stained floor near where his head had lain so many nights.

Then the door opens and Jacob appears, and the relief is like breaching the surface again. His lungs burn with it.

Jacob seems to know his thoughts, and Staci blushes and faces the wall. He covers his face with his hands, desperate to shield his eyes, his shame, all of his horrible stupid God damn jumbled emotions.

Traumatized.

Enraptured.

He startles when Jacob envelopes him from behind. The rough fabric of his jeans scratches against Staci's bare lower half. Long arms crushing them together, his back to Jacob's chest, like maybe if he pressed hard enough they'd fuse. Jacob's chin digging into his shoulder. A hand splayed possessively, palm over his heart, fingertips along his throbbing wounds.

“Easier access if you're in mine,” Jacob mutters. Intentionally crude. Voice casual like they were talking about the weather, which had cleared somewhat since their nap. “Fuck you in your sleep in if I wanted to. Better tabs on you there, too. Can't be doing anything suspicious if my dick's in you.”

Doesn't mention that he had only been awake for about twenty minutes, or that it wasn't nightmares that woke him up, but the honking of a horn in the courtyard. Men frantically searching for him to relay news.

Some of his scouts had just gotten back from a long reconnaissance mission, trying to find The Resistance, find Eli.

Found.

Jacob grins into Staci's cheek as he gives a token thrash of protest. Squeezes all of Staci tight, tight against him. “Hey, stop struggling. Wanna go for a ride?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WE TREKKIN ON TO CHAPTER FOUR Y'ALL.
> 
> shout out to [daddysnort](https://daddysnort.tumblr.com/post/173158557896/fanart-for-boneforts-jacobstaci) for their fanart of this chapter *3*
> 
> this next one might take me longer to pump out, i close three nights a week and tomorrow is night #1, and we're gonna be entering plot intensive territory, but best believe i'm thinking about these boys literally always.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning for discussion of child abuse (physical + sexual)

When Staci climbs into the passenger's seat of an old, beat-up navy blue Jeep Grand Cherokee an hour later, he's entirely conscious of the fact that he's about to leave Jacob's compound for the first time in four months.

It smells like Jacob in the cab, like his shampoo and deodorant soap, like his general air, and it's decorated much like his other dwellings—very few identifying markers or personal touches. Nothing around the visor, no photos tucked to the side of the speedometer, hardly anything in the console between them—a crumbled up, blood stained napkin and an empty shotgun shell.

Utilitarian. Purposeful.

There's just his smell and an aftermarket grip covering the steering wheel.

Staci's reminded of his X-Terra at home, bright fucking yellow with annoying bumper stickers all over its ass. The smell of his own shampoo and conditioner practically woven into the fabric of his headrest. A cigarette burn on the driver's door right above the window lip from before becoming Deputy, when he was so stressed out he bummed one from Nancy and nearly hotboxed himself. The gear shifter that stuck _just_ a little bit, always wanted to slide into neutral, and the bandana his Grandfather had left tied around it before he passed, that Staci never removed. His Abuela's rosary hanging from the visor, red red beads and a tiny Jesus shining in the light as he drove.

Her voice in his head, _¡Qué monstruosidad! ¿Por qué querrías conducir una banana?_

With a shudder and a draining exhale, Staci turns his focus back to Jacob's dashboard, his steering wheel with its little rubbery grips. Wills his body to be as loose and calm, nonthreatening, as possible as he secures himself into the bucket seat. He hasn't been given the Don't Try to Escape Speech yet, but he knows it's coming, and he wants to pass through this nerve-wracking in between period as quickly as possible, wants to get out into that open mountain air.

A few feet away from the Jeep's front grill stands Jacob and the rest of their party, three bearded men, the blonde cook from earlier, and two wild looking women. Staci watches as he holds court, long arms moving as he speaks. Relaying instructions on how this search and destroy mission is going to go.

Staci only knows a few pieces of the puzzle so far.

Apparently a few weeks ago, one of Jacob's hunting parties stumbled across a pair of higher ranking Militia members. Initially they had been instructed to covertly tail and monitor the pair, but upon discovering their rank they had been ordered to secure them.

After that came the Grandview.

Staci flinches. He remembers the Grandview. He hadn't been there long, had spent most of this period at the Veteran's Hospital with Jacob, but he had been dragged there a few times. That place stunk of madness, thick and oppressive despite its sunny exterior, looking like Heaven, an oasis, when it was actually just another portal to the Seeds' own Hell. Most of the main rooms had people chained to chairs, some alive, most dead, their eyes taped open and one of Jacob's horrible training videos on loop.

One of the militiamen must have finally cracked. Sung like a bird.

Staci hopes that they at least killed them quickly, After.

Jacob looks over at him midsentence, arms still accenting his words. His blue eyes look manic in the fading light of day, full of a fervor Staci's never seen before. They don't seem to reflect the setting sun, but house it.

Staci can't look away, from Jacob's burning gaze or his too sharp grin. Too many _teeth_ , almost. Sweat breaks out along his forehead, and he blames it on lack of air circulation in the Jeep's cab. Wishes he had the keys so he could roll a window down.

Wishes even harder that his first wish had been to have the keys so he could escape.

Maybe run Jacob over.

Staci settles for focusing back on the steering wheel, shame igniting in his cheeks, his chest.

_You're going to be out in an environment Jacob doesn't have 100% control over. Remember that, use that. This might be your only shot to escape._

He risks a look up despite himself, and finds himself pinned by Jacob's gaze again.

 _Or you could just show him how Good you can be_ , that voice in his head croons, voice like Jacob's. _Show him how useful and Strong and see where this takes you both. There's nothing out there for you but Him, remember that._

With a final nod of Jacob's head, their party disbands and begins to climb into vehicles of their own—one stark white, older pickup truck with the sunburst cross decal on the sides, and a newer looking black Jeep with a machine gun mounted on the back. One of the women shimmies up into the gun's platform and makes herself comfortable for their ride into the night.

Staci is watching her check the gun's rotating abilities and ammunition stores when the driver's door opens, door ajar alarm _ding ding ding'ing_.

From beside Staci, Jacob nearly vibrates. He fingers clench on the gripped steering wheel for a few heartbeats before flying forward to turn over the engine.

Attached to the dashboard above the main stereo is a mounted two-way radio, which crackles to life shortly after the Jeep does. One of the cultists speaks, “Beta-1 ready to move.”

Immediately after, another says, “Beta-2 ready to move.” The blonde cook's northern accent briefly fills the Jeep.

Jacob picks up his radio and replies, “Alpha ready to move. Outpost #3 acknowledge.” Lowers the talkie in his hand as he waits for a response, giant hand nearly obscuring the black plastic in his grip.

After a moment's silence, a crackle of feedback before another voice joins the fray. “Outpost #3 awaiting your arrival, Alpha. Omega team is out securing the surrounding area.”

“Copy. Do not engage until my order. Beta-1 proceed. Alpha out.”

Their procession begins moving, the white truck in front, followed by the black Jeep, and then Jacob's.

With his teeth sunk into his lower lip, Staci watches in the side mirror as St. Francis gets further and further away, til it's tucked in the glow of the setting sun behind them. And even then, he strains to watch it go. By the time he can no longer see it, they're leaving the hospital's dirt driveway and turning right onto a paved street, towards the McKinley Dam.

“Ready to go hunting?” Jacob grins. They jostle as they cross from dirt road onto smooth asphalt, Jacob's hands guiding the wheel in his grip with ease. “Got to admit, a little embarrassed to find out that they were _so close_ this entire time, but it don't really matter now, huh?”

“A day isn't a long time to get your ducks in a row for an assault like this. Are you sure you're ready to storm an enemy base?” Staci asks, back pressed firmly against his seat as they turn right hard and begin to ascend up a hill.

He had forgotten that calm, collected Jacob Seed tended to drive like a bat out of hell. Unused to being at the back of the pack instead of the front, Jacob rode the bumper of the Jeep in front of them, so close that the woman on the machine gun could place her foot on the hood if she was so inclined.

 _Would give him a speeding ticket for this. DIP class, maybe,_ Staci thinks somewhat hysterically.

“You worried, Pratt?” Jacob gives him a once over. “Hoping the plan fails?”

“No,” Staci answers immediately. He turns away and watches as they approach Jacob's bunker, as they pass it, cheeks flaring hot again in the diminishing light of day. “Just...you've been after them this entire time, and they're always prepared. Going in half cocked doesn't seem like you.”

Jacob gives a thoughtful hum. Works Staci's words around in his mouth as he mulls them over. Considerate. “We've got enough intel on the Wolf's Den that I feel comfortable proceeding forward, but your concern warms me nose to nuts, Pratt.”

Staci wrinkles his nose and turns more into the Jeep's door.

“Aw, don't be like that, Peaches.” His giant right hand moves across the space between them and comes to sit high on Staci's inner thigh. Fingertips just centimeters away from his crotch. “Afraid we'll succeed? Do I need to give you the speech?” A squeeze, fingertips pressing hard. “I brought you along to gauge your progress but if you're having second thoughts...” He eases up on the accelerator. “Cot may be gone but I can still put you back in your cage.”

“No,” Staci says again, voice softer. “Just being cautious, s'all.”

“Make sure that's all it is,” Jacob replies, and his voice is soft and deadly, his anger sheathed but always, always at the ready. “You try anything—”

“I won't.” Staci turns his body back toward Jacob. With his left hand, he bracelets his fingers around Jacob's wrist. His skin and arm hair are warm, soft beneath Staci's fingers.

Jacob rubs at his thigh, his gentle touch a stark counterpoint to his set jaw. “If you do, you better make sure I'm dead. Check twice. Because if there's anything left in me I'll use it all up to bring you down with me.”

Beneath Staci's fingertips, Jacob's pulse is slow and sure.

-

After that they lapse into a semi comfortable, semi uncomfortable silence. No menacing from Jacob, no interruptions from his men. It's almost homey, riding along with just Jacob's breathing, Jacob's smell for company. He feels enveloped by a sense of contentment that overpowers the voice in his head telling him _stay vigilant look for a way out_.

With his right hand, he winds down the manual window lever a ways and closes his eyes as the wind blows through his hair. It's been so long since he's felt the wind on his face. Got to smell the mountain air without desperation and misery clinging to it.

He hadn't ever spent much time out here Before. Sure, he had to come pretty far out on patrols at times, and he had flown over Hope County in the chopper on a semi-regular basis, but just driving along, window down? Taking in the sights and the smells only the wide open could offer? It wasn't something he made time for, and doing so now made him wish he had.

Growing up, Staci had spent most of his time indoors with his aging grandparents, occupying himself with his books and toys because they couldn't keep up with him. There weren't many kids his own age in their apartment complex, and those that were tended to ask him why he was with his grandparents instead of his mom and dad. Why his mom came around sometimes and left quickly after, yelling and cursing as Abuela held back tears and pressed his face into her chest. Why his dad never came around, period.

_Staci's mom is on drugs_

_Staci's dad musn't want him_

He had been a shy and sad kid, chubby and with virtually no friends but his grandparents, and without encouragement to climb out of his shell he was content to stay within his own walls. By the time he had reached adulthood and had gotten used to his own skin Staci Pratt had been pretty cemented in his ways, and those didn't involve dirt or grime or strenuous activities outside of the bedroom.

Staci startles out of his head when Jacob snorts and squeezes his hand. His fingers are no longer around Jacob's wrist but _entwined_ with his own, and with a sick jolt Staci realizes he can't remember feeling Jacob's hand shift at all—meaning it was _his traitorous hand_ that moved.

Slithered up like a God damn snake in the grass to hold Jacob fucking Seed's _hand_.

“S'okay if you wanna hold my hand, Peaches,” Jacob teases in the darkness. A passing cult truck washes his face in bright white light and all Staci can see of him are otherworldly glowing blue eyes and white white teeth. _Less a snake, more a shark_. A shark Staci's stuck in a cage with and voluntarily holding hands with.

There's not even the Song to blame, just the warped synapses in his brain misfiring over and over.

 _It doesn't even feel that bad_ , the voice in his head says. _Warm, safe. Strong. Good on your dick._

Staci's face burns and burns, has to be glowing as brightly as Jacob's face bleached out in the headlights. He tries to extract his hand from Jacob's and feels Jacob's close tighter around his. So tight if he squeezed any harder his bones would creak, a fucking bear trap.

“No, no, it's fine, really. Hold my fucking hand, Staci.”

Another squeeze, and Staci can feel the tips of Jacob's fingers pressing the tops of his knuckles inward.

Staci gives in. He allows his fingers to curl loosely around Jacob's, and his whole body _melts_ into the seat when Jacob rumbles quietly, “There's a good boy.”

-

The scenery all around them opens up as they drive, the view of the river to their right shielded from Staci's sight by tall, jagged cliff face and giant, ancient trees. Their headlights cut through swathes of the forest around them, spotlights on deer traveling and wolves trailing. On the crucified so-called sinners lining the dark twists and turns of their mountain road like light posts.

Staci does not envy them, and that fact surprises him. To be dead now, hung on the side of the road and left for the carrion after all of this, would just be a waste of the blood, sweat, and tears he's shed since the Beginning. He _will_ find a way out.

_Or a way In. Burrow so deep into Jacob you're never off his mind._

These thoughts are not altogether unfamiliar, but the frequency with which he's having them now is worrisome. At the Beginning, his internal monologue raged and wept and then raged some more, but as he used up all of his Hope, his tune slowly began to change.

_Prove your worth, show you're Strong, and it'll all be Easy._

_There's no way you win here, Pratt, no way Out, not without giving In._

_He's too Strong, Stronger than the rest. The Resistance is just a Flea, they can't win._

_It's Only Submission._

And now? Now that Staci knows what Jacob feels like inside of him, his huge body pressing Staci into the mattress. Now that Staci knows what he sounds like when he comes, when those anguished whines and cries are ripped out of his throat because of something _Staci_ has done. Now that he's begun to burrow his way into Jacob's skin—

_Make him Want you make him Need you make yourself Strong and Invaluable_

_Make him Love you_

Jacob's hand is warm in his. His nails are short, clipped down near the quick, and his skin is clean, dry. Suntanned and freckled on top and calloused pink beneath.

An idea slithers into his head.

Staci turns their joined hands over in his lap, and though he doesn't look up for confirmation, he can _feel_ Jacob's gaze on him. Jacob does not fight him as he pulls his hand free. He simply allows his hand to rest palm up on Staci's thigh and awaits his next move, with a patience Staci has rarely seen in him. The question on the tip of his tongue practically floats throughout the Jeep's cab, but he does not speak. Allows the scene to unfold, relinquishing a little bit of control to Staci.

Slowly, like he might spook the man, Staci traces the lines in his hand with the edge of his nail, feather light touches along the lifeline running through the seat of his palm.

There's a harsh inhale from Staci's left. A shiver that travels up from Jacob's toes and courses through his body like a current. He can feel Jacob's gaze boring into him.

 _He should really watch the road_ , Staci thinks distantly, and his head feels fuzzy, like Jacob's shiver rattled his core like a bell. Thick like underwater, like Bliss in his bloodstream.

_Make him make him Make Him_

When Staci drags his fingertips over the junction of Jacob's hand and arm, there are goosebumps running up and down his skin. A new kind of scar, one that will fade from his body but not from Jacob's mind.

And Jacob's heartbeat, oh his heartbeat.

The blood thunders in his veins beneath thin white skin as Staci lightly grips his wrist with his left hand and continues his ministrations with his right. He diligently brings his fingertips up and down every line in Jacob's palm, and then works up his digits. Rubs his touch into the backs of Jacob's knuckles, the whirls of his fingerprints. Cradles them through another minute tremor.

“Pratt,” Jacob whispers, punched out of him on a rough exhale.

 _Wrong answer_ , and Staci lifts their hands to press his lips to Jacob's skin. Drags his kiss along all of the skin he can reach.

“What are you—” Jacob groans softly when his index and middle fingers are slowly engulfed in warm wetness. In disbelief, he rubs gently along the questing tip of Staci's tongue. Pets it. “ _Staci_.” Like it's been pulled out of him against his will, the name ripped to shreds on Jacob's sharp, sharp teeth as it leaves his throat. “Keep on, and I'll radio the others to stop while I fuck you on the side of the road. You want that?”

Staci releases the fingers in his mouth with a quiet _pop_. Lets their hands fall back to his lap and proceeds to braid their fingers together like nothing had happened, like that's not Staci's own saliva dampening their skin. Nonchalantly gazing out the window, the word _SACRIFICE_ painted in huge letters on the cliffside, and the irony of it makes Staci snort.

The sound that leaves Jacob's mouth isn't entirely human. He squeezes Staci's hand hard. “Don't think I won't, you—you little cocktease. Pull you out of this car and let them watch as I breed you on the hood. Get you screaming for my dick so loud all the animals run away. Fuck, God.” Jacob pulls their hands over into his lap and presses them against his stiffening dick. “That what you want?”

Staci's just made a noncommittal noise and opened his mouth to respond when the radio crackles to life. “Beta-1 approaching the turnoff for Outpost #3.”

Another animalistic sound. Jacob uses his knee to steady the wheel as he uses his left hand to rip the walkie from its dock, his grip on Staci hot like a brand, still pressing down against the front of his jeans. “I know where the fuck we're going,” he hisses.

A beat of silence, then two, three. “Copy.”

Staci snorts again. Pulls their hands back to his thigh, like they had never moved in the first place.

For a long moment, they sit in the charged silence hanging in the cab, the only sounds Jacob's slightly labored breathing and the beating of tires against the earth. Staci watches as they move from paved government asphalt to a thin, winding dirt service road. They begin to climb another hill, and in the immediate distance Staci can see lights begin to crest over its side. Barbed wire fencing and the tops of buildings come into view, several tall blinking red towers and a fat white domed structure. A handful of satellites, flashing red in time with the towers.

A sign.

_UNITED STATES AIR FORCE_

_WHITETAIL MOUNTAIN AIR FORCE STATION_

_PIN-K0_

“Fuck,” Jacob mutters, and his grip on Staci's hand loosens a little.

“Fuck,” Staci agrees.

Like at the end of their first encounter, sweaty and panting and exhausted, with the weight of their power dynamic groaning as it shifts and resettles.

“This isn't over,” Jacob says, telling Staci as much as himself. He parks the Jeep behind the other two cars and sits stock still for a beat before turning his entire body toward Staci.

_make him make him make him_

Staci hums his affirmative.

In front of the Jeep's grill, doused in their headlights, stand the rest of their party. They are all attentive but resolutely not looking inside. The driver of Beta-1 stands furthest away, looking sufficiently cowed.

Blue eyes rake over his face. “When we get back I'm going to fuck you so hard into the mattress you'll be spitting out springs.”

Staci meets his gaze.

-

The Radar Station is aflutter with activity. Jacob very seldom visits his Outposts, usually leaves that job to his Chosen, so it's almost a special occasion. Cultists lean out doors and around walls to catch a glimpse of their Red Herald, tall and proud, shoulders back.

They end up in the dome topped building, which appears to be Outpost #3's base of operations. Staci trails a ways behind, taking in the new scenery, touching all of the unfamiliar items as he passes. The layout is mostly wide open and only one of the exits has a true door, and Staci stores the information dutifully, but the desire to obsessively map out is escape plan his muted.

It worries him that his complacency doesn't worry him more.

He listens as Jacob begins to climb a set of stairs, his heavy footfall loud in the open stairwell.

Flashes of Earlier, in another stairwell.

_Let me in_

_I can't get you out_

There's a hand against his chest, exerting pressure to keep him back. Staci blinks dumbly at it and stumbles back, finds himself at the base of the stairs, Jacob up, up, up, out of sight.

“You stay down here,” Beta-1's driver says quietly, and the gentle but firm grip on his gun draped across his chest brooks very little argument.

Jacob had said nothing about Staci being outside of the loop, but he hadn't said anything about him being involved, either, so Staci doesn't push it. He takes the dismissal at face value and turns back around to continue surveying the room. There's several white leatherbound Bibles throughout the space, open to various pages. Dirty dishes hastily slid to the side. Papers spread all around the room, on top some stuff and underneath others. Letters to one another, letters from Jacob, from the Father.

Like they got the news that Jacob was coming and dropped everything to meet him outside.

Maybe they had. The cultists at Jacob's compound look at Jacob in equal parts fear and adoration. Even when things get hard and his cruelty shines like a blade in the sun, their respect for him is palpable. They bend to him like heated metal, hoping he will sculpt them into something Better, Stronger.

John's Chosen loved him, but their fear always won out—his anger was just too unpredictable, too unbridled. There was no logic behind it, no calculation, just _fury fury fury_ and by the time John came back to himself, there were bodies all around, cultist and Resistance alike. Blood and Fear thick in the air.

Faith's were Bliss drunk, trailing after her in her floral scented wake, hoping for a glimpse of her beatific smile. Puppets joyous as she played with them, positioned them to and fro like dolls in her playhouse. Love, so much Love it often scrambled their minds, but little else. No room for it in their skulls with all that Bliss drenched adoration.

Near an open door, Staci leans against a computer console and leisurely flips through one of the cult's Bibles. The verses are all wrong, nothing like the Catholic Bible he'd grown up smothered by all his life, but Joseph Seed's fucked up interpretation has a haunting, lilting sort of charisma to it, very Old Testament.

Quick footsteps pound down the stairs. Staci looks up from his reading to find Jacob a step away from the landing. His breathing is controlled, even, but blanched knuckles and blue eyes give him away. Wide and alarmed, big big big with white showing all around, they search around the room before landing on Staci and stilling. Calming.

Jacob exhales gingerly as he takes in the sight of Staci Pratt, drenched in moonlight, wind in his hair and Joseph's words open before him. His gaze is almost reverential until his walls go back up, but Staci has chipped away enough to see that he was unsettled by the thought of Staci having slipped his net, and moved to find him just shy of where he left him.

Like a dog dutifully waiting for its beloved Master.

“Come,” he calls quietly. He waits on his step and watches as Staci soundlessly sets the Bible down and closes the gap between them, and with a nod of his head upward he urges Staci up the stairs, ahead of him.

-

The cultists try to get Jacob to spend the night in a cabin at that base of their outpost, but he declines and chooses to hunker down in the dome of the operations building. They've brought two sleeping bags, two blankets, two bottles of water, and two servings of food, and it warms Staci to be included so fully. Warms like burning, the sweet smoke of it clouding his brain.

Jacob zips their sleeping bags together after a brief shared look, and settles down on one side of their makeshift bed. His blanket is draped across his lap, his water clutched between his thighs. He's still wearing his jacket, but his boots are off, stationed a few feet away. Fucking stocking-footed.

The domesticity of it all is fucking with Staci's head.

He folds himself onto the floor beside Jacob, and allows the hot stew in his grasp to warm his chilled hands. Normally he'd complain about catching his death out here in the frigid autumn air, but it's been _so long_ since his life hasn't been all stress, all the time.

The moon is high in the sky, and there's so little light pollution up here that the inky black above them is riddled with stars. He lets his gaze rove over them lovingly, thinks of the telescope his Abuelo had saved up to buy him, and the way they'd sneak up the fire escape of their building to get to the roof and look for planets. He thinks of the astronomy classes he took as an undergrad when he needed to pad his courseload a little more. Had he been better at math, Staci would've probably followed his love of the stars into the Sciences.

Before he can think better of it, he's talking. “Up and to the left, there's Cassiopeia, the five pointed W up there. You can see it pretty much year 'round, here.”

The silence that follows his words has Staci's cheeks burning again, but he doesn't leave well enough alone. There's just _So Much_ inside of him and with each minute shift in their dynamic, Staci is dragged closer and closer to ripping himself open to show Jacob every measly inch of himself.

“You can easily find the Milky Way—”

“Why're you telling me this?” Jacob asks dryly. He throws back the rest of his stew and swallows his last mouthful before setting his dish aside. Leans back on his arms and then looks over at Staci.

Staci chooses not to look in his eyes, but takes in the cords of muscles in his forearm beneath his chemical burns and freckles, the way his fingers splay behind him to keep him upright.

“I don't know,” Staci mumbles, and he drags his eyes away. The five stars of Cassiopeia seem to twinkle at him sadly. What _was_ he trying to do? Fucking stupid. “Forget it.”

“You trying to _bond_ or something, Pratt? I think our only shared interest is my body on yours.”

Slowly, so slowly, Staci exhales all the air in his chest. The sting in his lungs is most certainly _not there_. “Okay,” he whispers.

The silence that descends is stifling, made only just bearable by the view before them and the warm stew in his grip.

_Need to eat it fast before you say something else fucking stupid and he takes it from you._

The scalding hot soup seems to singe its way down his throat as he takes it all back as Jacob had. The size and temperature of the mouthfuls brings tears to his eyes, but his mouth is occupied and his stomach is soon full, so Staci counts it as a win.

“Trying to drown yourself now? So dramatic.” Amusement in his voice, only partially chilled. When Staci doesn't answer right away, just licks his lips and sets his bowl aside, frost begins to set in. He uses the arm closest to Staci and pulls his chin towards him, forcing eye contact. His grip is firm, but not painful. “I'm going to need you to answer when spoken to.”

Up this close, Staci can see the flecks of green in Jacob's irises. The faint freckles on the bridge of his nose, the tops of his cheekbones, washed out by the scarring. “No, not trying to drown myself. Sir,” he answers, shoulders slumped beneath his own blanket.

The grip on his chin tightens for a fraction of a second before Jacob lets him go. His jaw is loosely clenched and his brow is beginning to furrow, like Jacob is confused by something. Constipated.

Staci returns his gaze to the sky. They might not talk about the stars— _stupid stupid what the fuck was that—_ but Staci can still _look_ at them. He hunts down the Dippers, Big and Little, and then wracks his brain for the names of some of the other constellations up above them.

Weather and school permitting, he and his grandfather had made a weekly thing of it: getting together with beers and good food to talk about the infinite universe around them, huddled around their telescope after climbing up the fire escape. Abuela in the background knitting or reading her book, occasionally chiming in on their conversation. Uninterested in the Universe beyond that of their immediate world, but interested in supporting her loved ones.

After he died, Staci kind of...stopped. Didn't take the time to look at the stars passed what he saw when he patrolled at night. Now the ache of it all kicks in his chest.

God, what would Abuelo say if he could see him now? Look at the fucked up mess he's gotten himself into, middle of fucking nowhere Montana, might as well be fucking Stockholm, with a _cult's herald_ at his side and his fucking heart in his throat.

“Never, uh, never paid much attention to the stars. Always had to have my nose to the ground. Didn't have any time for stargazing.” Jacob's voice sounds awkward, rough, like the words are fighting their way out passed his teeth of their own volition. “Lot of fucking stars in Iraq, though. See 'em for miles and miles in the desert. Sometimes the only thing to see.”

Iraq. Gulf War? Jacob is nearing his mid forties, and if Staci's remembering his timelines correct, that'd put him in either Desert Shield or Desert Storm. “Never wondered their names?”

Jacob snorts. “Spent most of my time dodging bullets or killing the people shooting at me, what do you think?”

Staci shrugs his shoulders and pulls his blanket in tighter, knees drawn up. “Always liked space. Should've changed majors when I had the chance.” _Wouldn't be here on this roof fucking capture bonding if I had._ “What about you?”

“What about me?” Arms protesting their position, Jacob unfurls his legs and lowers himself to their makeshift bed. He folds his arms behind his head and watches Staci, watching the sky. “Fishing for information?”

“Making _conversation_ ,” Staci hisses, suddenly furious. Like it would kill him to learn a little about the man he keeps under his thumb, the man he's _fucking._ Like it would kill him to let someone insignificant like Staci Pratt know him just a little.

“Watch it,” Jacob quietly warns. Deep breath in, deep breath out, always even-keel, even with all his anger steadily simmering inside him.

Staci's breathing is shallower, pulse spiked. “S-Sorry. Sorry.” He draws his knees up more and leans against them, hugs them to his chest as he wipes sweaty palms on his blanket. Turns his face away from Jacob to study the mountains to his left. There's a blinking light in the distance, some kind of tower, and Staci squints and strains his eyes trying to make out whether it's government made, or one of the cult's. Maybe a cellular tower, maybe a wolf beacon.

Wind plays through Staci's black hair, and if Jacob focuses he can smell his own shampoo wafting towards him. Jacob watches his jaw flex, clench unclench clench. “I didn't go to college. Got my GED and enlisted as soon as I was old enough. Made a career out of it until I was forced out.”

It's enough to draw Staci back in, Jacob can see it in the way his profile twitches. Wants to draw Staci back in as much as he wants to push him away.

Sets his line out in the water. “Bet you're wondering about my discharge status,” Jacob rumbles.

“Gonna punish me if I ask if it was honorable?” Staci turns his face back in despite himself, and to his surprise they share an amused gaze.

“Honorable Medical Discharge, if you can believe it.” Jacob's teeth are white, white in the moonlight, and Staci has the most damning urge to lean in and taste them.

“No, no, I can believe it. I see the way you carry yourself here, it's not hard to transplant you overseas.” The worst part of it is Staci's not lying, not blowing smoke up his ass to stroke his ego. Jacob is a lot of things, very very many things, but he's a God damn good soldier. Staci offers him the barest of smiles and Jacob's face scrunches up again, like he's confused at this course of events.

There was never supposed to be any fondness here, on either side, and both are bewildered by its presence.

“Cop's not much different than a soldier. Different battlefield, but one all the same.”

“God, I would've been a horrible soldier,” Staci snorts. “Horrible. Plus, Abuela—”

_This isn't your fucking boyfriend shut the fuck up!_

It's Staci's turn to scrunch his face up, teeth sunk firmly into his bottom lip. Jacob watches the emotions flicker across his face, watches them flare and shutter in his eyes, so easy to pick up the pieces of little Staci Pratt and read them aloud.

“Gonna finish your train of thought, there? What would little old Abuelita do?”

“Don't,” Staci whispers. He thinks of Jacob's harsh, alcohol soaked words the other night and feels the stew in his stomach turn.

“Hm, Staci? Gotta speak louder than that.”

“She would've been horrified,” he admits, tears in his voice, eyes screwed shut. Misery paints across his cheekbones with a wide brush, and Jacob _aches_ to trace its path, with his fingers or his tongue. “She went off on Whitehorse after I joined the Force. She would've raised Hell if I had enlisted.”

“I like to think about my Old Man when I remember my Service,” Jacob says. “He was getting shivved in prison while I was flying off to my first tour.” The tone of his voice is wistful, fitting for talking about the stars above them, but not something as warped as that.

_Figures his father was incarcerated._

_But what about yours, Staci Pratt?_

“The day I graduated from college, my Father got arrested three towns over with an underage boy and meth in his car.” Staci turns his face forward and pushes it against his thighs, pushes until color bursts in his vision and his eyes ache from the pressure and not his tears. “I don't know why I'm telling you this,” he says, muffled into his lap.

“Ah.” The eyes on Staci's side seem to be both critical yet soft. “Daddy Dearest didn't put his hands on us like That, but he did beat the shit out of us. Belts and switches and his hand. Other helpful, thoughtful things like table legs or his Bible. Always went the hardest on me, but that's mostly because I egged the bastard on. Tried to keep him off Joe and Johnny.”

 _Jay and Joe and Johnny_ , the eldest of three. Sympathy for the Devils.

“He touch you?” Jacob's voice is soft, feather light, and when he turns his face to look at him, there's no mockery or cruelty in his eyes. Just calmly controlled anger, not _at_ Staci, but _for._

Staci's breath hitches and he turns away as fast as he had looked over.

“Ah,” Jacob repeats. He clenches his jaw and looks off into the distance. “He dead?”

Staci shrugs his shoulders. “I try to avoid thinking about it all. Mom's dead, O.D.'d in some shithole outside Bozeman.” A chill runs up his spine, teeth suddenly chattering.

Jacob is up and pulling him down in a flash. Staci doesn't even have time for his startle reflex to kick in and out before he's on his back, Jacob over him like a weighted blanket, settled between his thighs.

“This—this doesn't get me _hot_ , Jacob,” he huffs.

“Shut up, Staci.”

They taste the same, beef stew and clean water and crisp mountain air. Jacob holds his face between his huge, huge hands, and kisses all of the oxygen out of his lungs, kisses him until colors burst behind his eyes again and he's mewling to come up for air. Then there's lips and teeth on his throat, and he whines pitifully when Jacob traces his wounds with the flat of his tongue.

Jacob shifts until his face is pressed to the side of Staci's, tongue tracing the shell of his ear. Breath hot and sweet and moist against his skin. “When this is all done, when I've destroyed what's remaining of the Resistance, we'll track down Daddy Dearest, huh? Carve his heart out for you after I feed him his own dick.”

Hysterically, Staci asks, “What if he's dead?”

“Grave desecration,” Jacob says, like it's the simplest thing in the world. He holds himself above Staci on his forearms and _grins_ down at him.

The gravity of what Jacob's offered him sinks in, and Staci stares up at him, thunderstruck. He curls his fingers in the material of Jacob's top and holds his gaze as he pushes it up. Lets his fingertips trail over the definition in Jacob's abdominal muscles, which shift under his questing touch.

“This is so fucked up,” Staci whispers, and he cuts off whatever Jacob was about to add by pressing his lips to Jacob's and his palm to Jacob's crotch.

-

Jacob's up before the sun's finished rising. He stares up at the incomplete dome above their sleeping bag and watches inky blackness continue to give way to violets, reds, oranges—like someone scratched away at the sky to get at what's beneath. Over the morning wind and the calls of birds, he can just make out the sounds of the Outpost slowly coming to life.

There's a grumble of protest to his left. Curled tight to his side with his face pushed to Jacob's ribs is Staci Pratt, hair fucked out and neck freshly bruised. Beneath the top layer of the sleeping bag, their legs are intertwined and his feet, even within the sleeping bag, are like fucking ice blocks.

Jacob has had many, many bedmates in his life, but never any that he allowed to stay over, sleep in his space. He's woken up semi-peacefully beside Staci fucking Pratt three times now, and it's the damnedest God damn thing.

He thinks of his brother's voice, even and light and just a touch sad in his ear. _We as men are meant to be Known, Jacob, by our God and our Kin. We are not meant to be alone, and one day you will die with only your Rage for company. Unless, Dear Brother, You Let Someone In._

Joseph probably expected him to take a wife, not his hostage. The thought of his self righteous younger brother discovering _this_ is how he took his words brings a smug smile to Jacob's face.

“Get up, Staci,” Jacob mumbles, voice deep with recently shed sleep.

Staci gives another token protest. Smashes his face harder into Jacob's side.

“Get up, Staci,” he says again, voice clearer, harder. He can see sleep beginning to leave the other man and awareness make itself known. “I'm hungry, and I've got a Whitetail to kill.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok, less plot intensive here and more character study, which makes the NEXT chapter plot intensive?? i'm going somewhere with this, i promise lmao i've got the next two days off so!! hopefully i will get shit Done :-)
> 
> again: if my spanish is Off, which it probably is, please lemme know so i can fix it!!
> 
> i really appreciate all of the support on here and tumblr an every time there's interaction my cold lil heart grow a size


	5. Chapter 5

Their breakfast is significantly less sprawling than the previous day's, than Jacob's traditional mammoth fares. Supplies up here must be limited, rations cut close to the quick. Belt tightening environment. Each meal's sole purpose is nourishment, none of the frill or fancy you'd find in John's compound, Joseph's. The men and women assigned to the base are lean but not wasted. They are hardened, honed. Faces proudly weathered in their endurance of everything – their isolation, their hunger, their vigilance.

Still, one of their Heralds is in their midst, and they pull out all the stops they can afford. Shortly before their arrival a small hunting party had been sent out to fetch fresh meat for the following day's meals. Volunteers eager with their bows and quick, silent gaits. The maroon balaclavas and military fatigues Jacob's Hunters are famous for worn with pride, ready to provide, to prove their Strength to the Strongest of them all.

Some time after Jacob had rolled off of him, when they had lain together staring at the sky, side by side sweaty and sated, Jacob's hand encircling Staci's wrist, they had returned. Singing songs with their dressed kills in tow, some dragged behind on tarps, others with the animal's dead weight distributed between two cultists. One notable huge bastard who carried a stag on his shoulders all the way up the face of the Mountain, whistling.

_You can sing all through the night, preach til the morning light._

In the light of the moon Jacob had begun to laugh. The vibrations of it amplified in the dome above them, hanging thickly in the cool night air. He had turned to Staci, mirth in his beaming mouth, his hooded blue eyes. Body curved towards him, thumb rubbing the dip in Staci's wrist. Sweaty hair fanned out across his forehead, flattened by hands – Staci's hands. Curled wetly, dark, on his furred chest, shiny before Staci's eyes.

It only made them sing louder, still so damn eager and proud. Loyal. Adoring. Chanting like he was a deity and this their offering. Uncaring of how their chorus skirted down the mountainside like mist.

_Some cannot tell wrong from right._

The air seemed to crackle with it, the deep, full bodied cadence of his amusement and their floating devotion. The lyrics, syncing with his own muddied thoughts. Staci's head spinning with shame and his own adoration, with his own inability to keep his wits about him in Jacob's red red aura. Conscious of the fact that he was Losing _something_ and unable, almost unwilling to stop it. Common sense sluggish in the afterglow.

Up or down, wrong or right? All just red red red.

_Oh, Jacob's gonna come and set those Sinners Free._

Staci swallowed hard, throat clicking with it. Heat pooling in his gut again, speeding up the blood _thud thud thudding_ beneath Jacob's touch. A sharp inhale from his side, like a predator scenting its prey, and then Jacob was back on him, like he had sensed the renewed arousal, the new subtle submission from Staci, and sought to devour it. Frenzied, like trying to climb inside his body.

Staci had come to hours later to Jacob's early morning rumblings and the smell of freshly roasted venison. To the glorious, languid ache of three orgasms and satisfaction burning in his marrow.

The shame of it all he quietly folds and tucks away in the pocket of the jeans he has to fetch from near the dome's railing, flung away last night in their fervor.

Jacob's gaze on his bare skin scorches, buzzing buzzing buzzing.

-

Staci's sitting in the bed of a white cult truck, the sun steadily rising in the sky, cultists spread out all around. He's got his back against the cab's outer frame and his eyes on Jacob as he moves around the open center of the Outpost, talking to this cultist and that, inspecting the deer spit turning steadily over a medium sized fire near the domed building they had just vacated.

He had perched here simply to get out of the way of the growing bustle around them, tucked away in a bubble of semi-isolation while still remaining in Jacob's sight. Their dynamic fluctuating as it is now, living somewhere in the muddied waters of the nameless pit of emotion swirling, sloshing in his guts— _not love, Pratt, it's not love, it's Capture Bonding, stop Looking at him like that! Rose colored glasses, red tinted world, Only You, remember remember remember—_ Staci intends to stay close at hand but out of the fray. Though he might not know his true place here ( _besides under Jacob, you mean, huh, Pratt?)_ he knows well enough that the time for proving himself Jacob had mentioned in the ride up here is not here, not now, while breakfast is being made, and that the best place for him is out from under foot.

He's used to it, with his life now and Before. Usually in the background, seldom in the forefront. The sting of it here, now, is different, somehow lesser than at the Station, than being delegated to support instead of being able to run point. Riding in the patrol car instead of driving it when they're out on calls. Little injustices that had wounded his pride time and time again.

Staci muses that it's because there's no room for pride in the Whitetails, at least not for Staci Pratt. At least not now. His everything is riding in Jacob, like the older man wears a vial of his free will, his liquid destiny, around his throat alongside his dog tags and rabbit foot. Curves him this way and that, a showman with his marionette. And because it's Jacob's will, and not other people gently stepping over him to enact theirs, his aches are muted. No room for anything but Jacob's vision for him.

It's as terrifying as it is freeing.

Swaying in the grass in the distance draws him out of his head. The blades shiver and dance and then part, and Staci feels a bracing in his gut. Friend? Foe? Wild animal? He's leaning forward, prepared to alert Jacob to the disturbance, when a small, timid tan head peaks out, and big black-brown eyes blink at him over the tall fringes of meadow engulfing it like the sea. It watches, unmoving save its flickering spotted ears, as Staci watches it, as men move around roasting its kin.

He doesn't know if this little fawn is related to the deer being spitroasted, but he feels for it like he had watching _Bambi_ as a child. Feels a little bit like the fawn itself, floating above himself as Jacob takes and takes and takes from him, seemingly til there's nothing left.

Suddenly there's a dip in the truck bed and a bowl in his hands, warm and welcome. Blessedly he barely startles, doesn't slosh or spill any of its contents, and he recovers quickly enough to say a quiet _thank you_ to Jacob, who watches him with a carefully blank face. Half in the truck bed and half out, one knee beneath his body and the other firmly planted on the ground. So close to Staci he can just barely make out the coffee twinge on his breath.

Staci has the most ludicrous urge to kiss him. He bites his cheek instead and looks down to inspect the bowl's contents.

Two crisped circles of sausage stick up at him from a generous serving of seasoned, buttered grits. A thick slice of cooked venison steams at the lower rim of the bowl, steadily sinking into a sea of peppered white and yellow. Together they gaze up at him like the melted remnants of a fucked up snowman.

The deer is gone when he looks back up for it, and the fact that it doesn't have to watch him eat its kin is weirdly relieving—Staci is _famished_.

The men around them are still being served, having waited for Jacob to get his initial serving before taking their own share, and they blink, surprised, as Jacob sets a canteen beside Staci and then slides to his feet. His face is still blank but less carefully now, and there's confusion easily read in the furrow of his brow, like he's unsure of what just happened but not entirely upset.

They don't seem to know what to make of Staci, a Sheriff's Deputy without his gun and badge, ensnared way up high in the Mountains. Jacob's ward, Jacob's paramour?

The ones he has never met eye him curiously, interested to know why this silent specter trails after their Herald. Why this Outsider warrants one of their Leader's time and attentions. They don't speak to him, but their eyes are mostly kind. Unsure but willing to accept him into their Family if only Jacob would say the word.

The ones he has met are even more inquisitive but are better at hiding it. While Jacob's facing them, at least. They had seen Staci sniveling and shaking in Jacob's presence months before, eyes vacant and nose bloody and head stuffed so full of _only you_ they could hear its music if they only dared to press their ears to his chest, and to see them now so strangely... _domestic_ , so entwined, has them grasping at straws. Baring him from meetings to safeguard their plans, only to have their Herald fly down the steps and fetch him, himself.

Unsure and hesitant to force illumination on it without Jacob's express say so. The wrong assumption so, so damning in the unforgiving landscape of Jacob's territory.

In or Out, Insider or Outsider.

Jackpot or Landmine.

The dual bitemarks offer some hint, a bruised and bloody clue carved into the maps of their skin. More than once, Staci has had a cultist eye his throat, flicker over to Jacob's, angry imperfect circle nestled against the open collar of his fatigue jacket, and then back to him to smirk in his face. Surprisingly, though, the looks weren't entirely mocking in the way Staci expected them to be.

Less _Jacob's little whore_ and more _oh, so that's how it is?_ in the curved lips over yellowed teeth.

Girlfriends egging on their friend to spill the sordid details of their most recent affairs. Teasing, jostling, an elbow in his side _huh, so that's how it is?_

Still, he looks away, cheeks aflame as they always seem to be now a days, stomach fluttering. Weirdly bashful instead of the shameful misery he knows he should feel. Doesn't.

He looks away from that, too.

Conversation stumbles momentarily in their rapt observations, but swiftly resumes after a glance from Jacob. Then they hurry, handing out bowls and canteens of water and coffee before scurrying off to their seats, eager to eat and discuss their next move. Hoping to show Jacob what they can do and engender his esteem, adoring eyes shining in the morning light.

Some of the men shift around from their spots spread out around the open center of the outpost. They look like they want to call Jacob over to sit, like they're in fucking high school or something. Desperate for the quarterback to sit at their table, maybe feel them up during lunch. There's a small group of them on a halved log, campers at a seriously messed up summer program, and without looking at one another they shift down until they're packed tightly and there's just the slightest bit of room for Jacob, should he choose to grace them with his presence.

There's benches and flat, dry grass and even a single, solitary picnic table he could chose from—and yet they all watch, Staci included, as Jacob brings his meal back to the truck bed and climbs in. He sits with his back to the passenger's side wheel well, one leg extended over the tailgate, boot tip just touching the floor, while the other fans out and comes to rest solidly against Staci's ankle.

A collective sigh from the hopefuls. Staci eats one of his sausages with a smugness he knows he shouldn't feel.

 _I know what his dick tastes like_ , he thinks but absolutely does not say.

The sun's in Jacob's eyes, making him squint, but it's the price he willingly pays to have his back as close to the wall as possible, and the world opened up before him. Any enemy dumb enough to attack a cult outpost with its Herald on site will have to strike at him from the front or the sides.

Staci couldn't imagine someone being dumb or desperate enough to attack them right now. Everyone is eating but everyone is _armed_ , all save Staci. Jacob's signature rifle is draped across his lap, and at his thigh is the machete he always takes everywhere. Beneath the leg of his jeans, Staci knows there's a strapped handgun at his ankle and multiple hidden knives. He had found them last night when they undressed, watched them be put back on in the faint morning light.

Everyone has at least a handgun on their hip. Most have that and a rifle, or that and a shotgun. Across the makeshift courtyard, there's a heavy eating sloppily with a fucking RPG strapped to his back.

It would be suicide to attempt anything, especially with how riled everyone is to have Jacob there. They seem to draw strength from him, pumping themselves up like he emanates Strength like Angels do the Bliss. It'd be like getting in the water with a tankful of starved piranhas, all teeth and shredding and so much red.

Staci doesn't know _what_ he'd do if the base was stupidly attacked. He's not armed and he's some Other—would the Resistance know his face? Do they know his name? Would they know enough to not gun him down like just another cultist? He's not wearing that stupid white sweater with the starburst cross, but he's not bound or crying or seriously injured.

He's eating fucking grits with Jacob fucking Seed in the sunshine.

Would Staci fight their attackers, or would he slink away and approach them later, tell them who he is? He's not sure he wins with either option, so he carefully pushes the thought away and reaches for the canteen Jacob had given him. The metal is warm, and the spicy fragrance of coffee greets him when he spins the top off. It's just black, but the caffeine feels amazing coursing through his system.

Jacob looks over at him and takes a sip of his own coffee, blue eyes steady, throat working in long pulls.

Staci knows what that throat tastes like, too, scars and all.

Their moment is interrupted by laughing from over near the heavy. Three men are guffawing, one bent over nearly in tears. The look on Jacob's face is fond, nearly soft, as he watches them.

Staci's heart thuds, quietly enraptured.

 _Stop stop stop stop_ the voice in Staci's head cries. _He starved you and beat you and degraded you, don't—don't fall for this Stockholm Syndrome shit._

Like pressing down hard on the breaks even when he knows the breakline's been severed. Instinctive, like if he presses down just a few more times the connection will repair and he'll be saved from hurtling off the cliff before him. Futile.

He goes back to eating. Even with his emotions flipflopping like a fish gasping for air, Staci's got food in his bowl that he will not allow to go to waste. He's had three, four? Square meals in the last forty-eight hours, and going from near starvation rations to mostly full most of the time is a feeling Staci doesn't want to lose again.

What he's willing to do, to continue doing to ensure he doesn't, looms in the back of his mind. Thick black smoke churning out of the corner of his eye.

That, too, he pushes aside.

All that's left is just Jacob.

-

They spend most of the rest of their daylight hours in Outpost #3's little command center, preparing their weapons and mapping out their attack plan. Staci hadn't heard the original draft of it yesterday morning, but even compared to last night's shorter session, this version is much finer tuned. He doesn't know if the extra ironing out of details was because of his admitted hesitancy yesterday in the drive over, or if this is something Jacob always does—but he chooses to believe it had something to do with his influence.

Watching him delegate to his men, Staci learns first hand how good a Marine Jacob had to have been. His men watch him raptly as if they could absorb his Strength via osmosis. They all seem to sit a little straighter in their chairs, feet planted firmly on the ground.

Staci's reminded of the Box, of its overwhelming hold over your thoughts, your body.

_Hunt train kill sacrifice_

The scariest thing about Jacob is that he doesn't need the box to enact that sway.

All of the Seed siblings seem to have it, that supernatural charisma that pulls people in and under like a riptide. With John, it had been his lawyer speak, his chameleon skin, able to shift himself around to best settle his prey into a false sense of security. Joseph has those big, all knowing eyes and this omnipotent pressure, like a magnetic field that draws you in—you wanted to believe his words and surrender to his better judgment. Even the adopted sibling had it, Faith's air saccharine sweetness, a pretty perfume to mask her chloroform.

Jacob's sway had everything to do about the steadiness of his breath and the straightness of his posture. The way his hands did not shake, how his shots rang true and always, always hit their mark. Strength like an aura, a cloak around his shoulders, the kind that leave you desperate to prove yourself to him. To be found worthy.

They plan to strike just before sunset, at a bunker built into the mountainside to the northeast of here. They'll walk the mile and a half or so between Outpost #3 and the Wolf's Den. Omega team will stay in their sniper's nests and watch over them. Then, they'll descend on it in three waves: the first will storm the blown back entrance and begin their sweep—Jacob running point. The second will shortly follow the first and wipe out any stragglers, thus securing the scene. The third will defend the rear and ensure nothing comes in or out that's not with Eden's Gate.

It all sounds too _simple_ to Staci, but what does he know? Trained police officer yes he is ( _was, was was was_ ), but he hasn't seen combat the way Jacob has. Doesn't have the innate ability to wage war that he does, or the men who would readily die for him at the drop of a hat.

Staci sits in the corner of Outpost #3's little war room and cleans Jacob's guns, sharpens his machete. He had been entrusted with this task after a critical once-over from Jacob, and his body tingled with pride when Jacob had grunted a soft affirmative and unloaded his weaponry. No _if you try to kill me you better succeed_ , no threatening him with bodily harm—Jacob just searched his face and found _something_ worthy, and Staci set off like a good little pet.

It's just ensuring the good standing of the weapons Jacob will use to kill innocent people just trying to defend their homes and lives.

He listens idly to the soothing tone of Jacob's voice as he dismantles his rifle with something he resolutely will not call reverence.

The voice in his head screeching for freedom is suspiciously absent.

-

Staci had expected to be left securely at the Outpost, so he's still surprised when he finds himself nearing the Wolf's Den bunker at Jacob's side, the oncoming night bruising the sky crimson and violet. He even has a handgun in a holster on his hip, wordlessly given to him before they embarked after another one of Jacob's little soul searches. Its weight is unfamiliar now, outside of Staci's past and the red blur of the Box, and he's acutely aware of its presence the entire walk over, through tall grasses and steep climbs, all done in purposeful silence.

They stop just out of sight of the bunker after a gesture from Jacob. Staci stops beside him, hoping no one else can hear the rabbit quick beating of his heart. The rest of the party look calm, most detached and efficient like Jacob. The heavy in the group has a quiet mania building that keeps Staci far, far away from him.

To his left, the blonde cook gives him a meaningful look and a soft smile. His hands look red around the stock of his rifle in the light of the fading sun. Staci's sure the look is meant to be reassuring, but it just sets Staci's teeth on edge, has him drawing closer to Jacob without conscious thought.

Jacob gives the signal, and the first wave rolls in to set their explosives.

-

They're walking in through the blasted back entrance when Staci's gut just _sinks_.

There's something wrong, and something in his head wails and rages against their descent into the mouth of the bunker. He keeps his jaw clenched as they proceed down the stairs and clear the first room. Jacob maintains point and sweeps the room with ruthless efficiency, back to Staci and his quiet freak out.

Staci wants to reach out, pull him back by the shoulder, but doesn't know how without risking the butt of Jacob's rifle to the face and Worse later.

After the third room has been cleared with no sign of the Resistance, no sign of _anything_ , no life, no one living there, just a staged model home on a lot—Staci rips the bandaid off. His jaw is sore from biting down on the words in his throat, and they sound cracked and jagged as they leave his mouth. “Jacob,” he hisses, as quietly as he can muster. “Something's wrong.”

The only sign that Jacob's heard him is a second's falter in his step. The handful of other men in wave one give him hairy looks, but he focuses on the back of Jacob's auburn hair in the dim. Bores holes into the back of his skull in hopes he'd just _slow the fuck down and listen._

As they cross the threshold into the heart of the bunker, everything so sterile and dull and _lifeless_ , Staci tries again. “It's a decoy,” he near whines, “I don't think this—”

He never gets to finish the sentence.

A lot of things happen at once.

There's a blinding, screeching light he just barely sees before a hand is clamped over his face, crushing his nose.

Something pulls him back and throws him into the wall. Pain washing up his side, his face, from the impact against an unforgiving bulkhead in the bunker's steel. Knees protesting as he slides down to the ground.

Gunfire rings out from within the bunker, outside it, its sound reverberating in his skull in the confines of this little mountainside grave. Rings in his head like a bell. A torrent of ejected bullet casings rain down on him, burn his skin where they land, and he shakes them off as he desperately tries to regain his footing, blink out the spots in his vision.

Then the unmistakable beating of helicopter blades and the rumbling force of launched missiles hitting their target. The smell of sulfur so thick it makes him gag with it. The force of impact shaking the floor, shaking the whole God damn mountain.

He's only standing for a few seconds when he's pulled back again. There's a sickening _crack_ as his head hits the floor. The wind's knocked out of him and there are more spots in his vision. Dumbly he blinks over and over, trying to clear them out.

Willing his jarred body to just fucking _respond_ so he can get to Jacob.

“Stay fucking down!” Nasally voice, northern accent over the din of gunfire. Blonde hair shimmies and shakes before him, the blonde cook's face in duplicate, triplicate swimming in his sight. He grins down at Staci after effectively killing the two men who rush into the room, _pop pop,_ one bullet in each skull. “Gonna get you out if you just _stay down_ , Pratt.”

In the distance he can just make out the swimming image of Jacob Seed on one knee, scrubbing furiously at his eyes in attempt to clear them and get his balance. Staci can't see any wounds on him, but he is forced to watch as the blonde cook saddles up to him over the body of a dead cultist.

Staci's heart's in his fucking throat as he prepares to watch Jacob die, and he should be elated at the thought of this all ending but he just feels like he's been shot from a cannon, like he's in freefall and he might puke any fucking second. Disoriented and nauseated and _please don't kill him_.

Instead of lifting his weapon to shoot, the blonde uses the butt of his rifle to bash Jacob in the face. His eyes are protected by his hands, but his nose gives with a _crunch._ Blood pouring down his face, sticky and wet in his beard.

Jacob groans, a low, animal sound, before surging forward with all of his strength behind his shoulder. Even with his sight gone he connects solidly, and he brings their snake in the grass to the ground. His body seems to work on autopilot, a finely tuned instrument, because there is no hesitation in his muscles as Jacob's giant hands lock firmly around the blonde's throat and _squeeze_.

He fights harder than Staci would've been able to, he'll give him that. Thrashes and punches to Jacob's sides and jagged nails ripping down Jacob's cheek, his forearms. His lips are blue and his eyes are bulging when he finally stops fighting, but still Jacob squeezes. Squeezes until Staci expects him to pop like a champagne bottle, until he's worried his head'll just come off like a doll's, _pop!_

“Jacob,” Staci calls, and Jacob startles. Drops the lifeless body of their Judas to the floor. Unseeing eyes fly up and desperately search around the room. It's the most jarred Staci's ever seen him, and he struggles to get onto his side, his knees, to go to Jacob's aid. “Jacob,” he calls again, trying to give him something to aim for, to gravitate towards, “over here, come here. You're in the fucking open, please.”

Jacob's crawling across the room when more people enter. A woman moans in devastation before lifting the muzzle of her rifle and shooting Jacob once cleanly in the shoulder. Another animal sound from Jacob and he's on the ground.

“Tammy! We're supposed to take him alive,” someone cries. “You can't kill him yet!”

“Yet,” is the cold reply.

Weak but not down, Jacob struggles back to his knees.

“For Christ's fucking sake, you murderous sack of shit. Stay down!” Tammy cries, and she steps forward in a flurry, rifle stock raised. This time it connects fully, and Staci's pretty sure he hears bone crunching beneath the blow before Jacob finally crumbles.

The room is silent for a beat as the Resistance members in the bunker catch their breath.

There's a face in front of his suddenly. Long braided black hair and hardened brown eyes. “This one's still alive but I—he don't look like a peggie. I think—I think this might be one of the other Deputies?”

Before Staci can do anything there's more blinding pain, this time in his face, his nose. Jacob's blood from the rifle stock brushed across his nose, mixing with his own blood pouring from his face like a faucet. As he sinks under the weight of it all, finally surrenders to the dizzying ache, he can hear Tammy say over the deafening static in his head, “Don't think that's a lawman anymore, I think he's Jacob's.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok so i kind of hate writing action sequences like this so if it sucks i'm....real sorry lmao plus i lost like 1.5k words when my computer decided to take a Massive Dump and i only managed to piecemeal some of it back from memory :-(


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i took some creative liberties with the wolf's den layout, sue me ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯*
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> *ubisoft pls do not sue me

The thing about bunkers is that all that steel and cement is shit for soundproofing.

They're meant to keep the bad stuff out—nuclear radiation, poison, bullets, enemies, water and fire and wind—and keep the good stuff in. Ensure the safety and comfort of those inside. Built to form a strong barrier between the fucked up outside and the things a man loves most. So that man may continue his existence even if the world cannot continue its own.

You can soundproof the inside, sure. Thicken the metal divisions between rooms, safeguarding man's privacy at the same time as you safeguard his life.

But the Whitetails hadn't, so enraged arguing is the first thing Staci hears when he claws his way back to consciousness.

“He's one of them, Eli! You didn't _see him_ , he was in that bunker ready to kill us and didn't have that God forsaken zombie stare the others had! What's his excuse?”

It feels like an ice pick is driving through his skull. The shrill incredulity of Tammy's rage pushes it further home with every word. White hot pain lances through his entire being, _pound pound pounding_ like a drum in his ears.

“He's been tortured for _four months_ , Tammy—four months with Jacob Seed. You think he's gonna argue with him? Sit this one out? Nathan knew how hard he had it. He was going to—”

“Nathan's not gonna do anything because Nathan is dead! Jacob Seed _strangled him_ , Eli!”

The agony is like the sea, and the wounds he can recall getting are islands, continents. The throbbing ache on the back of his head is the Arctic. The stuffy, sticky torment of his nose is North America—

“And I'm as hurt by his loss as you are, but you've just made my point: Jacob Seed did it. Not Deputy Pratt.”

“Did _Deputy Pratt_ try to stop it?”

Breaching the surface of all of that suffocating pain is a feat. It's exhausting just to get his brain to translate what his eyes are seeing—gunmetal gray steel walls around him, a tall metal door with a glass porthole to his side. A man and a woman whirling, distorted, through the glass.

A silver set of handcuffs biting into his wrists above his head, holding his arms so awkwardly up, up, up, that his shoulders had gone numb and his arms are tingling.

Alone, though, on what he thinks is a spare throwaway cot, and isn't _that_ just the fucking funniest shit Staci's ever heard? If the lobes of his brain didn't feel like they were a gentle breeze away from severing, he'd have started laughing. Crying, too, probably.

“Was he not caught in the same flashbang the cultists were?”

“You can't trust him, Eli, you can't! He's too far gone, we have no way of knowing how far Jacob's influence has gone—”

How far _has_ Jacob's influence gone? Staci's hands stained with blood, his own and those of the other poor bastards thrown to the wolves, to Jacob and his culling. Staci's heart stained with doubt, with molting patches he shies away from, refuses to name.

Under his thumb for months, pliant and malleable. At first just wanting, needing to survive, but then slowly wanting, needing to prove himself. To be Better, to be Stronger. To be More.

Under his body for less than a week, pliant in new ways. Taking less and less pain every day, trading it in for pleasure. For Power. Allowing Jacob into his body, his head, his Heart with the gentlest of protests. Hands shaking but legs spread wide.

Jacob's mark on his throat, and his on Jacob's.

A sudden Collapse of Staci's own making.

“Are you suggesting we—Dep would have wanted us—”

“Dep is dead! Another fucking person stolen from us by the God damn Seed family, Eli _please_ listen to yourself. You cannot save everyone—Deputy Pratt is more of the same: collateral damage.”

“We can still save him! Try to at least. We can't just abandon him!”

“Can't we? _Shouldn't_ we? Should we – should we spare his life and by doing so damn him? To memories of that fucking Mad House and the Hells he's seen?”

Hells like bodies strewn around his feet, his gun still smoking. Hells like the cries and begging of those beneath him, fresh meat in the Pens after Staci had begun to work his way Up the bone ladder of St. Francis's.

Hells like Jacob Seed's pleasure slackened jaw, his hooded bedroom eyes and his cock pulsing hot inside Staci's body. Hells like seeing the fleshy, bleeding parts of Jacob Seed that he hides from everyone, even himself.

“We try, Tammy, and if we can't – if we can't, we—”

“Just delaying the inevitable, Eli. I'm not throwing a party over here. I wish we had gotten to him sooner—I don't _want_ to be a cop killer. I won't enjoy his death like I'll enjoy Jacob's—”

_Won't enjoy? Jacob's alive Jacob's alive Jacob's alive_

“—but it's a mercy killing now. You put down sick animals because you care and by now...Deputy Pratt's gotta be one sick dog.”

He can't have made it all this way just for _the Good Guys_ to be the ones to take him out. Euthanized like some terminally ill pet, Sick as he definitely is.

He's panicking. Chest rising and falling rapidly but his lungs refuse to cooperate, to fill properly. Gasping for air, a fish ripped out of the ocean and flopping pitifully in the sand, so so painfully close to the waterline. To safety.

Blood thundering in his ears so loudly he can't hear Tammy or Eli any longer.

_This can't be happening this can't be happening this can't be happening._

Tears burn his eyes as Staci struggles against his bindings. The metal bites into his wrist, abrades his scarred skin and rubs it raw like it hasn't in ages now.

Staci had been safer with Jacob. It's the cruelest kind of injustice Staci's ever experienced, and he's had more than his fair share of brushes with misery.

He might vomit, might piss himself.

 _Calm down_.

Staci stills all at once, obedient to the dulcet tones cutting through the haze of his panic. _Jacob_. The stiffness in his muscles slowly releases, bowed back gently easing down into the cot. Oxygen, sweet and filtered, returns to lungs, and he shudders against it all, spots dancing in his vision, muscles quivering.

He looks around foolishly, like they'd actually store he and Jacob together. Blinks at all of the gray around him and wishes for _red_ , wishes for stars above his head and Jacob's rough thumb on his wrist.

_You are Stronger than this helplessness. You are above it. Be vigilant, everyone has a weakness to press—you just have to wait for it._

“Okay, okay,” Staci whispers to himself, to the voice of Jacob slithering through his skull. His lips are cracked and they split around his words, but this new pain is enlightening rather than blinding. Constructive.

He worries the splits in his lips with his dry tongue as he lets Jacob's voice hiss in his ear.

-

The door to his prison squeals as it's worked open a short while later. Staci lolls his head over to look at his visitor, intended executioner. With a calm detachment he plays at dazed, vacant eyes blinking owlishly.

Haloed in soft yellow light stands Eli Palmer. His bearded face looks terribly sad as he gazes upon Staci, so different from the hardened expressions he wore in the covert photos Jacob's men had taken of him the rare times he surfaced from the Wolf's Den.

“You're awake,” he says softly. He steps over the threshold and closes the door behind him as gingerly as he can. Quiet like he's in a hospital room, a morgue. “Was wondering if you'd ever come to.”

“How long?” he asks, and his voice is so muted and wrecked Eli has to strain to hear it.

“Two days now.” Sad smile, sad brown eyes. Handsome under all of that fur and jadedness. “Tammy clocked you good, and you already had been injured.” Arms sweeping in front of his body, palms up. Apologetic. “Couldn't run the risk of you injuring anyone in the chaos.”

Staci nods loose and weak. “I'm—”

“I know, Deputy Pratt,” Eli hushes.

He doesn't. Oh, how he doesn't. If he truly understood, he'd shoot Staci right wear he lay, no mercy at all.

A wounded sound. “You _don't_ ,” he tells Eli. Wills tears to his eyes and casts his wet, despondent gaze at the other man. “I'm so _tired_.” It hits its mark, and pity floods Eli's face as Staci lets the tears begin to fall.

It's not exactly a lie. Staci is weary down to his marrow, but his drive to survive props him up with the energy he needs.

He's not going down like this. He's _Better_ than this, Stronger. He's going to prove it.

He'll collapse later.

Eli closes the gap between them and kneels at his side. Hands on the bed like he'd take Staci's in his if he could. A Decent Man, and Staci's truly sorry for what he's going to do.

Eli doesn't deserve this, but if it's him or Staci, well. Staci's going to pick himself.

“Deputy Pratt,” he whispers.

“I can't—I can't go back there.” Body shaking, tears cascading down his face. Snot and old blood steaming from his fucked up nose. “I-I can't—”

“Sh, sh. We won't make you.”

His act is almost cathartic, in a fucked up kind of way. Lancing the wounds of his earlier traumas and coasting on that bright white pain to carry him, hopefully, through this mess.

“I-I—he, oh God.”

“Deputy—”

“His voice is in my _head_.” Again, not a lie, and he can just make out the rumblings of Jacob's laughter, wisps of it swirling in the back of his skull. “I _can't_ , I can't.”

He can, and he will.

“Tell me what you need.” Like Eli doesn't already know where this is going. Staci Pratt looks more broken than he could've ever imagined, and it _aches_ in Eli's chest to know that Tammy is right. God damn her, she's right. It'll be a mercy killing.

“What time is it?” Staci sniffles and struggles to sit up as much as he can with his arms bound above him. He lets his frustration show and wails miserably, arms protesting as he flails. The burn of it is almost clarifying, purifying.

“Sh, sh,” Eli urges again. He stands above Staci and unlocks one of his handcuffs. Eli's skin is burning hot against the frayed flesh of Staci's wrist. “Let me.”

Staci obediently watches as Eli frees his hands from above his head. The fact that he handcuffs him again once they're in his lap is disappointing, but not altogether an inconvenience.

“It's about midnight.”

“Could we...could we go outside?”

“Outside?”

His wrists are bleeding. Staci hunches over on himself and studies the red shining on silver in the dull light. “J-Jacob had me – had me—caged a-and I just wanna—”

Eli nods, sage like. “You want to see.”

“One last time,” he whispers.

With the gentle care of a hospice worker, Eli helps Staci gather his wits about him and steadies him on his feet. He smells like pine and patchouli, clean and musky. It helps him to focus on emptying his mind, on acting like a shell shambling behind Eli to merciful, sweet release.

Staci doesn't look up to survey the Wolf's Den as they go shuffling forward, but judging from the general quiet he guesses that there aren't many Whitetails around. Celebrating the capture of their most immediate enemy, perhaps? But where?

There's a loud moan of pain from somewhere in the bowls of the bunker. The hissing of electricity. Staci startles backward into Eli before his brain _clicks!_ that that must be Tammy, must be _Jacob_ , and he clenches his fists against his chest. Grits his teeth.

He cannot go to Him. Not yet.

 _Soon_ , he thinks.

Another distant sound of pain is his only reply. He lets it harden his resolve.

“Let's go see the Valley,” Eli proposes. One hand on Staci's lower back, the other on his elbow. Guiding, genial. “Climbing the ladder might prove a little challenging, but...”

“It's okay. I – I understand. B-Better this way.”

His handcuffs jingle against the blue ladder as he climbs out into the night air. The wind whips around him, throwing his dirty, matted hair into his eyes. He takes in the view as Eli slowly ascends from the bunker. Hope County opened up before him, so high up in the Mountains. Twinkling lights and moondrenched rivers and rolling hills and Misery and Joy, all living and breathing together.

“It's beautiful,” he breathes. From behind him, Eli murmurs an affirmative as he pulls himself out of the ground. “You can see so much of the sky from up here.”

The hatch to the bunker isn't even closed.

Eli gently guides him forward fifty or so paces, towards the cliffside. The grass is tall and soft here against Staci's legs, lapping at his knees like waves.

If his plan fails, this isn't such a horrible place to die.

“Cassiopeia.” Staci points up to the familiar W pointed constellation, the same one he had pointed out to Jacob earlier. The wonder in his voice is genuine as he shows it to Eli. “Can I – can I sit for a while? You can leave the cuffs on.”

Without a word Eli eases them to the ground a foot or so away from the lip of the cliff, where the rock is exposed and the dancing grass is at their backs. He sits beside Staci, hands in his lap. Silenced gun still in its holster on his hip, safety on.

They sit in silence for a few minutes, with just the sound of the other's breathing and the night drifting on by for company. It's peaceful up here. Staci allows himself another moment to regret what he has to do. Forces himself to endure the anxious cramping in his guts and the icy sludge his blood has become in his veins, aching as it travels through his circulatory system.

“I wish we had found you earlier, Deputy Pratt,” Eli tells him as he gazes into the distance. Lamenting what he, too, has to do, not just for the Whitetails but for Staci Pratt, himself.

“Me, too.” His voice is so hushed Eli has to lean into him. “Eli?”

“Yes?”

“For what it's worth—” Staci trails off. Takes a deep breath and then exhales all of his guilt. It's a temporary trick—he'll never truly be rid of this, what he's about to do, anticipates the iron taste of guilt in his mouth and nightmares for the rest of his life—but its temporary absence is all he needs for Clarity and certainty to take its place at the forefront of his mind. The pain his body is carrying is muted and far away, and he can feel his Strength coil in his muscles as he braces himself for what must be done.

“Hm?”

“For what it's worth, I'm sorry.” He smiles at Eli candidly, and gives Eli enough time to begin asking him for clarification when he snaps forward like a serpent.

The suddenness of his attack gives Eli very little chance to brace for impact. He falls backwards under Staci's weight, head knocking against the dusty exposed rock beneath them. Winded and so, so confused, he scrabbles to get his hands up and Staci _off_ when there's a biting pressure digging into his windpipe.

He chips nails trying to dig it out, get his fingers between it and his airway, but the metal of Staci's handcuffs is of a solid make. Tammy had bought them for their durability, after all.

In the moonlight he gargles, frenzied hands flying from his throat to Staci's arms, desperate to make purchase of any kind. There's blood under his fingernails from gouging into Staci's forearms, and it only makes it that much harder to get a grip. Slippery, pungent iron wafting around them in the breeze, dancing off the smell of dry grasses and cool earth.

“I'm sorry,” Staci says, again and again. He's pushing down so hard the cuffs are eating into the backs of his shaking hands.

Eli jerks beneath him, gargles some more. The black of his pupils grows and grows until that's all there is, until there's so much dilation eating away his irises Staci can see himself in them, shaking and sweating above Eli's waning body.

He gathers up all the Strength he can muster.

There's a _crunch_ , and then there's no more Eli. Eyes black and empty and his neck ringed in red-purple, turned unnaturally to the side like a deer struck by a car.

“I'm sorry,” he says one last time, still seated on Eli's body. There are tears on his face. When he wipes at them with the back of his hand, he smears blood from Eli's clawing across his face like warpaint. The salt of them stings in his open wounds.

Surprisingly, he doesn't feel like vomiting. In fact, he doesn't really feel much of anything. Like in the Red, like in the Song. Detached, floating through the air as he watches himself fish in Eli's pockets for the handcuff keys.

Once he's free, he liberates Eli's handgun and climbs to his feet. It doesn't feel foreign as it had yesterday but solid, right. An extension of his arm.

He spares Eli one last look before using the toe of his boot to usher him over the cliffside.

-

Staci does a preliminary sweep of the bunker before he sets off for Tammy.

Most of the rooms are empty, like he had noted earlier. He only finds three other Whitetails.

In one of the back rooms, he silently kills two sleeping militiamen. Just two _psst psst_ 's and the cloying smell of iron, and they never wake up.

The guy in the storeroom has his back turned to Staci, and he begins to turn, to say something to whoever he assumes Staci is, before another _psst_ sounds and he crumbles. He hits the ground harder than Staci anticipates, clears the side of a counter on his way down, too. The silence that follows the clatter of trinkets to the ground is jarring, ripping Staci out of his cool detachment for a moment.

Staci holds his breath and counts to five, waiting for a reaction. When there is none, he sighs bodily and continues methodically clearing the rooms.

The Wolf's Den looks exactly like the decoy bunker should have—lived in and loved in, with personal belongings and debris everywhere, an actual wolves' den. Sleeping bags and toiletries and snacks strewn about. A line of dirty shoes near the main ladder. Maps with scribble on them on table tops. A stereo turned off but loaded with an honest to God mixtape that says WHEATY'S WICKED WAYZ in scribbled sharpie.

It's homey in here, homier than Jacob's spartan compound and his Outposts and his own bunker. If things had been different, he could see himself spending time in here. Weaving himself into the tapestry. Deputy button up draped over a chair. Boots lined up at the ladder.

But things aren't different. Or maybe they are? Maybe they're so different now, so wildly different from how they used to be, that this kind of gentleness, this sense of community is off limits to him now. Staci has let himself be swallowed whole by darkness in order to survive, and while he does not actively regret it...it smarts, what he'll never have.

 _Push for it with Jacob_ , the voice in his head says. _Show him how Strong you are. Make him Keep you—make him allow himself to be Kept._

“Jacob,” he breathes. He waves his thoughts away like he could physically banish them.

-

Tammy's just turned up the voltage when Staci creeps into the room. The sound of her torture device hissing and Jacob grunting and groaning in agony, feet sloshing in the water at his ankles, masks the minute sound of the door squeaking open and shut.

“Monstrous piece of shit, how does it feel, huh?” she hisses for what must be the hundredth time, watching as he flails under the electricity.

There's an art to this kind of torture, a delicate line to toe. She doesn't want him to overload and die immediately, she has plans to draw this out, like she had the other days Jacob had spent under her tender care. Lovingly she gazes at her favorite of Jacob's newest scars, bestowed upon him by her very own hand on their first day together. MONSTER is etched hugely across his collarbones, angry and red and possibly, hopefully, infected. He had been silent through the bulk of her carving, only really crying out when she took her fingers and _dug_ them, twisted them into his open, weeping bullet wound, the one she put into his shoulder.

The temptation to just kill him immediately was there, curling swift and dark around her heart. But she knew then, as she knew now, that the restraint would be worth it, has to be worth it.

Jacob Seed suffering for as long as possible is her due reward, and what she owes to all Hope County's lost.

With a sneer, she kills the wattage and lets him come up for air. She paces in front of him, back still to Staci, and hisses unintelligibly beneath her breath. Kicks at the kiddie pool, sloshes the water. Pops Jacob in the mouth a couple of times.

Jacob is bound, shirtless and sweaty. His head rolls from side to side as he struggles against the nauseating pain singing throughout his entire body. His eyes won't focus as he looks blearily up at Tammy, her curled lip and her bloodstained soccer mom cardigan.

From behind her he sees Staci, and the cruelty of his brain conjuring him _again_ makes him seethe. Rage renewed, he bucks forward as much as he can with his arms and legs bound to his chair. Blood stained teeth bared in a snarl that reverberates in his chest, off the steel walls.

Then the image of Staci presses his finger to his lips, willing him silent, and Jacob struggles violently against the haze in his head. He's never done _that_ before, and Jacob desperately tries to clear his eyes, to shake the cobwebs from his mind. Needs to know if this is just a mirage or if that's actually Staci fucking Pratt in the corner, blood smeared on his face and a wild look in his eyes.

Beautiful, so fucking Beautiful.

“Ready for more already?” Tammy strokes the remote of her device lovingly with her left hand.

Possibly real, possibly imaginary Staci has a gun and a steady hand as he raises and aligns his shot.

“Well, hey there, Peaches,” he croaks. Coughs with it for a moment before it gives way to laughter that echoes off the walls and thoroughly pisses Tammy off.

“What did you call me?” she asks. She uses the remote to push Jacob's head back and force eye contact.

Jacob looks around her and to Staci, who seems more and more real by the second. He's even got that slightly constipated look he gets whenever Jacob calls him that name.

Staci sighs, put upon. “He's not talking to you,” he says.

In the videogames Staci plays, during the final boss confrontation there's always this huge bullshit struggle for power, where the two opponents teeter and totter back and forth, wrestling for victory. Trying to goad one another into that one fatal mistake that allows the victor to snap in and secure their win.

That doesn't happen here. It's simple, almost anticlimactic.

He's already pulling the trigger as Tammy spins around, jaw dropping.

They stare at each other as Tammy Barnes crumbles to the ground in a messy heap, her remote still in her hand. Frozen, Staci as rooted to his spot as Jacob.

“God, you _are_ real,” Jacob breathes. Eyes dilated from more than just his pain. Bloody pink lips slackened, worshipful. He sounds drunk with it, awe tumbling off his lips like praise. Blissed.

The warmth that rips through his chest has Staci whining as he closes the gap between them. He steps over Tammy carefully, toes the remote away, and tries to decide what to address first: Jacob seeing him when he's being tortured, Jacob's bound limbs, Jacob's livid wounds, which look far worse and _definitely_ infected this close up.

Staci settles for the bindings. They're too tight for his fingers to pry off. He makes a frustrated sound as a chipped nail catches on the wire, slicing through his nail and into the nail bed.

“She's got knives on her,” Jacob says, and he watches tiredly as Staci drops down beside her body to root through her pockets. Drooping in his seat, looking every bit his age.

The bowie knife on her ankle looks like it'd work. “Stay still,” Staci instructs as he retrieves it, and then sets off on slicing through the bindings. His eyes flicker from his task and Jacob's drowsy face every few moments. Doesn't notice when the knife nicks Jacob a time or two. Not that you'd be able to tell what's fresh and what's a day or so old, Jacob's body so riddled in marks from Tammy's toolbox.

It's hard to swallow, Jacob finds. His throat clicks with it as he slowly gathers the words he wants to say into his mouth. “Joe's never gonna _believe this._ I barely believe it,” he chuckles. “Fuck, look at you.”

“That's right, keep looking at me. Stay awake.” One arm free, Staci moves on to the next. “Stay awake, Jacob. I can't carry you up the ladder, and we need to _go_.”

“M'awake, m'awake.” Drowsy. His words tripping over each other, lilting as they tumble from his mouth.

“I'm _serious_ , Jacob—I can't carry you. Stay awake until we're outside.”

“Hey,” Jacob grumbles, “watch it.” Too weak to even work up an adequate snarl.

The knife clips through the second set of arm restraints. “No,” Staci hisses, dropping down to release Jacob's legs. Bloody water sloshes as he works, wets the knife's grip in his hand more than the sweat on his palms had. “No. _Listen_ to me, I just—I just—”

“S'okay. Sorry.”

The words are so faintly spoken Staci strains to hear them, and when his brain processes them it comes up startlingly blank. He slowly looks up at Jacob, chin tucked down against his chest, eyes glassy and forehead damp with fever, beard slightly obscuring the most impressive of his newly acquired scars.

He might be a MONSTER, but he's also Staci's. Staci's monster, Staci's burden—Staci's.

God, help him.

With the last of his bindings severed, Jacob slouches in his chair like a marionette with its strings cut. He's so tired, so Weak, but he has to keep pressing on. Like in the desert, sunburnt and exhausted as he trekked along with Miller, blistered and dehydrated and starving, he had pressed on despite the weariness making him stumble over and over.

For a long time after discharge and in the homeless shelter Jacob had bitterly wondered _why_ he tried so hard, why he refused to just give in. He had nothing outside the Marines. No family, no money, no purpose, nothing—neither his Strength nor his drive kept anything he loved in his life. It would have been easier to just give up, and he had been working on it—diligently letting go of the white-knuckled grip he had on his sanity, finger by cramped finger—when Joseph and John first laid eyes on him, cold and breaking and alone.

Joseph always went on and on about how the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. He believed in it even as a young boy, when the Lord giveth he and his brothers bruises and broken bones, when then in turn He taketh away Old Man Seed from their lives. Joseph's devotion seldom wavered, even when things got bad and they were finally disbanded—John adopted, Joseph swirling down the drains of Child Protective Services, Jacob throw away into Juvenile Detention.

Jacob, though, never truly believed in anything Godly until the Lord took everything from him only to turn around and quietly give him his brothers back.

Here, now, with Staci supporting his weight and helping him through the Wolf's Dead, is another moment of Clarity, in seeing the God Joseph always had.

-

Jacob is all but dead weight by the time they manage to heave their way from the maw of the Wolf's Den. He's silent, leaning heavily upon Staci's side, except for his labored breathing—each inhale and exhale smacks wetly in his throat, a rattling, ill wheeze clawing its way out of him. Jacob is a living, breathing wound, fresh and old alike marring his skin, etched into him forever, and Staci can't help the pity he feels for the older man as he gingerly sets him down near a rock.

“Jacob? Jacob, I need you to tell me what to do. Do – do I take you back to the Outpost? I don't even know where we _are_.” He crouches in front of Jacob and turns the man's scarred face in his hands. While Jacob is still technically conscious, he's fading fast. Nearly unresponsive, the fire in his blue eyes smothered out. “The bunker? Do we go to the bunker?”

“Joseph,” Jacob whispers, “take me to Joseph.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i think we have one, maybe two chapters left? we're in the home stretch \m/


	7. Chapter 7

 “Okay, okay, we'll go to Joseph, but I – I still don't know where we are. Jacob? Jacob?” The urge to shake him more awake is nearly overwhelming Staci, but there doesn't seem to be anywhere to put his _hands_. Jacob's skin is more ripped open than together, more damaged than not—bruises, shallow cuts and deep gashes, abrasions, _more_ burns - they all litter his body. More than a handful look infected, especially the livid MONSTER sprawling across the top of his chest. Its edges are angry looking, risen and jagged and with a faint build-up of what Staci guesses to be discharge.

It's gonna scar and it's gonna scar _bad_ , but he's sure that was Tammy's intention. The scrawl of it is messier than John's, the hand less careful of the canvas so long as the message was clear.

He wonders what being tortured was like for Jacob. A man so used to doling punishment out to others forced to endure the same misery. Pain like that only does two things to a man, it either hardens him or breaks him.

Staci's time in the Whitetails very nearly destroyed him, and in some ways he guesses it very well may have. Killed off the old Staci Pratt and birthed who he is now, this _Other_.

Childhood abuse hardened Jacob. The military hardened him further. But somewhere along the lines, somewhere between bootcamp and Hope County, something broke inside of Jacob – birthed _this_ Jacob Seed.

Does he have any room for harder, for more broken? Do the people around him?

MONSTER MONSTER MONSTER, it draws his eye time and time again, an angry red magnet. So fitting for a man like Jacob.

Murderer. Torturer. Soldier. Hunter. Herald. Brother.

Lover?

Staci just killed innocent people for a man like Jacob. What does that make him - is he worse? Worse because Staci chooses to align himself with him, worse because he has _Feelings_? How far does Stockholm Syndrome go as an excuse? Certainly not far enough to justify what he's just done. The blood he'll never wash off, the ripples he's caused in the water by casting this latest stone.

 _They were going to kill you_ , the voice says. Staci looks up at Jacob's mouth, chapped and busted. Not just pink anymore, but crimson and violet and puke yellow. A fucked up rainbow of pain. His lips are still, only moving to inhale and dispel air.

 _Two weeks ago and I would've let them. Happily_ , Staci thinks. He would've done anything to escape St. Francis's for good, even if it meant he died. And now? Now, Staci's essentially shackled himself to Jacob forever and the thought thrills him as much as it terrifies him.

He's essentially damned Hope County to the cult, too; signed their death warrants by taking out the figureheads of the Resistance. But he's not focusing on that right now.

There's not much skin on Jacob's face not swollen and gruesome, but Staci manages to find a spot that is only bruised. He settles for softly, gingerly, lifting Jacob's chin up to face him. His beard is tacky with dried blood and old sweat, coarse beneath his touch.

“Jacob?” he says quietly, voice wavering. They _need_ to get going. Eli and Tammy might be dead but who knows when the rest of the Whitetails would come back. He doesn't want to be _alone_ up here, in what's now enemy territory. Left to fend for himself after four months of virtually no input on anything that happened in his life. An animal spent too long in captivity that cannot survive being released into the wild.

The adrenaline he was riding on to get him and Jacob safely out of the Wolf's Den has since worn off, and his hands shake with the exhaustion and pain creeping back in. He hasn't eaten in two days, apparently, and while he _thinks_ his wounds were somewhat addressed by Eli before he woke up, Staci's pretty sure his nose is broken and without intervention will heal the wrong way.

When Staci starts rubbing his cheek, Jacob startles awake. “ _What_?” he hisses, and Staci doesn't miss how his breath catches in his throat.

“Does any of this place look familiar?” he asks, and he watches as Jacob's wide, unfocused blue eyes survey the shrubbery and foliage around them.

If he were to look over the cliff, he might be able to see Eli. Assuming the momentum didn't carry him further down, roll him further down into the forestry. Hidden, left there for the Earth to reclaim. Nothing left for the Whitetails to bury, to mourn.

“It looks like the fucking Mountains,” he snaps, but exhaustion robs his words of their normal bite.

It stings either way. Staci clamps down on his lip and looks away. “I don't know where we are,” he softly reiterates. Heart in his throat. “And I can – I can get you to Joseph, but I just need to know what to _do_ , and—”

There's a hand on his wrist, weakly squeezing. Warmth ringed around his wrist to match the warmth curling around his heart.

It's not an apology, but it's close.

When Staci looks down at it, he notices several of Jacob's fingernails are missing. Fingertips bloody and pruned, skin weak without the protection of their nails. The hand draped across Jacob's lap, almost cradled against his stomach, has a few fingers that look broken. Like they were smashed. Hand swollen and red-purple, painful. Splotches of impact slightly darker than the rest. He hadn't mentioned either wound before they climbed the ladder, must have used both to ascend up and out.

Staci fleetingly wonders if Tammy went after his teeth. Did she yank any of them out? People in action films with torture scenes always love to rip teeth out of gums with shit like pliers. Tammy Barnes probably would've loved the symbolism of literally defanging Jacob Seed. Worn them as earrings, or around her neck.

“I can – I can go back into the bunker. There were maps. Radios. I could – you could give me the frequency for one of yours and we could see about calling for help?” God, he wishes he had had the idea while still inside the bunker. He doesn't want to leave Jacob out here, alone and weak and exposed.

But without knowing when the rest of the Whitetails might come back, it might've been worse keeping Jacob indoors with him this rundown. Creeping through a bunker to stealthily take out four Whitetails is one thing, but clearing out how many others flood in, enraged and sorrowful, with Jacob nearing invalidity?

They'd both die, and all of the Sacrifices that've been made would be for nothing.

“Jacob,” he says, and he's already standing as he does. He gently lowers Jacob's hand to his lap, careful not to disturbed the one that's worse off. It's still braceletted around him, warm and heavy and loose. The damage from the handcuffs reopened, bleeding sluggishly down his wrist. Staining Jacob's fingers. “I'm gonna – gonna go see about finding a close range set of walkies. I don't want to leave you all alone out here, but I'm not gonna—”

The grip around his wrist slowly loosens, then pulls away. “S'okay. Go,” Jacob says. Owlishly he blinks and rolls his neck so he can face Staci standing above him. He looks as tired as Staci feels, bone weary and ancient. More haggard than he ever did after a nightmare, standing in front of that windowsill in his quarters.

-

In the heart of the Wolf's Den is a room with ten or so television screens, each marked with a strip of tape and sharpie. Before Staci in black and white flicker images of the Whitetail Mountains - Jacob's Gate and the Grandview included. He can just make out the fuzzy images of Jacob's men patrolling in both. Aflutter with activity. Patrols in and out looking for their Herald.

He needs to note where there are cameras so Jacob's men can remove them. “Come back to that later,” he mumbles to himself.

There's a long range radio on the desk beneath the monitors. It won't do him any good now, but if Jacob can give him one of his frequencies, maybe they can use it to call for extraction.

He heads on to another room, right off the one with the monitors. There's another long range radio, but there's also a record player and a few milk crates of vinyl to the side. Broadcasting music so the Resistance doesn't have to listen to the Hope County Choir, Staci assumes.

There's also a bunch of loose ammunition, rifle clips and shotgun shells and a half full bucket of loose pistol rounds. Staci takes a minute to pop the clip from his acquired gun and reload it, and then pockets a full clip for backup.

Still, not what he needs in this immediate moment – a way to communicate with Jacob while he's in the bunker and Jacob is topside.

He heads to the store area he had cleared earlier. The Whitetail is still on the floor, surrounded by the debris he knocked over in his descent. Staci liberates the handgun from his side and shoves it down the back of his jeans with the intent of giving it to Jacob, then carefully steps over the body to survey the room.

There's a lot of miscellany in the room – ammunition, more guns, animal furs, batteries, _food_. His stomach gurgles loudly in the hush, and Staci makes the split second decision to eat quickly before continuing. He had been eating so well the past couple of days that running on empty is a sharp pain once more, no longer dulled and distanced by repeated exposure.

He drinks one of the water bottles he finds so quickly he almost vomits. Water drips from his chin as he takes quiet little pulls of air to calm himself and his stomach. Then much more sedately he opens another and nurses it while he rifles through the food available in the store room.

A lot of it is freeze-dried rations, and while it would work out in the field or when actually confined in the bunker for safety reasons, it's not what he wants. Longs for breakfasts with Jacob, coffee and roasted venison. The eggs he's so fond of.

Instead he takes a handful of the granola bars he finds on a lower shelf and devours four before he's feeling semi-human again. He looks at the mess scattered all over the floor as he throws his trash into the can beside the counter, then carefully looks away.

He grabs a bottle of water and two granola bars for Jacob. He doesn't know if he's up for eating, but he should at least drink the water. It had been the same amount of time for him that it had been for Staci, after all, and he has to be famished.

After the store, he proceeds to go down the hall of bedrooms running directly down the bunker. From what he guesses was Eli's room, he liberates a plain black zip-up hoodie that looks like it'd fit Jacob well enough. Might be a little on the snug side, but it'd be better than nothing.

The next room has little of value, but in the third he hits the jackpot.

On the counter beside the bed sits a set of short range walkie talkies, still in their protective plastic. They've got little images of Cheeseburger the bear on them, likely found when scavenging near the F.A.N.G. Center.

He makes a quick trip back to the store room for the AA batteries it'll need to work.

Then he's halfway up the ladder, plastic hanging from his teeth, Jacob's water bottle sticking out of his back pocket, when he realizes he'll need scissors or something to open the plastic and actually _get_ to the walkies.

He slides down and thinks. He hadn't seen scissors anywhere, but he had left Tammy's bowie knife on the floor in her little torture room.

The smell of blood is stale in the air as he slips into her area. She's right where he left her, face down beside the kiddie pool, which now that he's got a moment he realizes has little Cheeseburgers all over it, too. Wonders if it was scavenged at the same time the walkies were, or if she brought it from home. Did she have kids she loved, played with? Had the Seeds killed her family and forced her into this conflict?

Resolutely not thinking about it, he cuts open the walkies and then exits the room as quickly as possible, pulling the door shut quietly when he's finished.

Back up the ladder with his bounty in a flash, Staci finds Jacob leaning back against his rock, struggling to stay awake. When he notices movement out of the corner of his eyes, Jacob startles minutely before registering who it is. His smile is soft and bloody, small and tired, but he offers it to Staci all the same. A gift, his reward for Culling some of Eli's herd.

Staci practically throws himself at Jacob's feet, his heart aflutter and cheeks warm. Eyes mysteriously misty in the moonlight no matter how many times he forcibly blinks them.

“I got – got some stuff,” he lamely says. He starts with the hoodie, wanting to put a barrier between the wounds Jacob has all over his body, and the elements. With a small smile and tender patience, he helps Jacob feed his arms into the jacket, then zips it up around him. It's a little snug like he expected, but it nothing that can't be tolerated.

Then he moves on to the water. He unscrews the lid and helps to guide Jacob's face as he lifts the bottle. There are blue eyes on him, searching, searching. Jacob's throat clicks as he swallows each long drink, and Staci _burns_.

When the bottle's empty, he sets it aside and unwraps one of the granola bars, not making eye contact. Places it in Jacob's hand and gently closes his fingers around it.

“You should eat,” he whispers.

“Staci,” Jacob croaks.

“Eat.” Forceful, clipped. There's no time for them to bare another layer of themselves to each other, but Staci can feel it coming. Staci is _owed_ its coming after what he's done.

Staci is Jacob's, Jacob is Staci's. Has to be. There'll be time to iron out the specifics later.

His hands shake as he pops the backs off of the walkies and feeds the batteries in. He puts them in backwards one time, drops them another, but finally manages to get enough control over himself and this simple task to install a set of batteries in each walkie and click them on.

There's a granola wrapper, empty, on the ground beside them when Staci presses one of the walkie's into Jacob's grip. Crumbs in Jacob's mustache, strawberry filling in the corner of his mouth. It takes a herculean effort not to lean in and clean him with his mouth. “Talk to me. Stay awake. I'm gonna go back in there for longer this time. Grab one of the maps and try to figure out where we are. Okay?”

Jacob's eyes are on him, heavy and considering. Burrowing deeper and deeper into Staci, making him want to squirm and pick at himself. He opens his mouth to speak but closes it soon after. Nods instead, eyes still never leaving Staci.

To say Staci practically flees his side after placing the second grandola bar and the handgun in his lap might be a little strongly worded, but not altogether _wrong_.

Back down the ladder and in the Den once more, he makes his way back to the monitor room. There's a table in the center of the room with several maps on it, one spread open and others rolled up on top. The open map has water rings and food smudges on it. Staci eyes it sadly, thinking of all the times the Whitetails must have huddled around the old thing to map out caches and safehouses and enemy territories.

Staci just hopes they marked some of them on the map.

He unrolls one map and finds its not even the Mountains, but Holland Valley. He quickly pushes that one aside and grabs another. It's rolled up looser than the rest even with the aid of a rubber band.

Unfurled and used often.

On it is most of Hope County. Jacob's Outposts are circled in red, John's in blue, Faith's in green. Joseph's compound in the center has a huge yellow-white ring around it. Liberated Outposts are marked through with a black X. All of John's but one had been claimed, but only one of Faith's and Jacob's had been taken before her demise.

The Elk Jaw Lodge isn't a place Staci had visited, even under Jacob, but he knew the stories of what went on there. Even if his allegiances had...shifted, he couldn't say he'd be sad to have less judges running around. Let the Resistance keep it, for all he cares.

The information is good to have, especially once he gets back on the main road and needs to make his way to Joseph, but he still doesn't know where they are.

“Jacob,” he says into the walkie. He fishes a pen off the counter beneath the monitors and goes about marking where the screens tell him there are cameras.

There's silence as he reaches for another map and spreads it across the table. Just the Mountains this time. Jacob's Outposts still in red, the Elk Jaw still marked out in black.

A curious white star, so small he nearly misses it, about a mile and a half away from the PIN-K0 station.  
  
When he looks closer, there's a slew of even smaller white stars throughout the region.

“Jacob,” Staci calls again, impatient. Walkie pressed close against his lips. “C'mon, stay awake, Jacob.”

There's a crackle of static. “Was eating,” Jacob mumbles. He can hear shifting, jeans and cotton catching on rock and dirt. “Hard to do all this shit with one hand.”

For a moment, he thinks about not sharing his information. A heartbeat, two, then he caves. Still desperately wanting to please. “Think I found a map of Whitetail caches.”

“Yeah?” He's not imagining the humor nor the warmth coloring Jacob's voice. They lilt, curve softly around his words in his exhaustion.

“Yeah,” Staci hums. He reaches for the Outpost map and searches it closely for white stars. Finds only one, so faint it's barely there, in the same place as the first one he'd spotted.

If this is the Wolf's Den, they're not far from the Radar Station. Even closer to the Park's visitor center. Maybe they could find a car there? Drive straight to Joseph instead of having to trek to the PIN-K0.

The Decoy bunker, he notes, is marked on the Outpost map with a gold star. Fool's gold, miles away from their desired target. The memory of it burns him, the uncertainty as they descended into the beast.

Jacob on his knees. Blinded gray-blue eyes. Nose a bloody mess as he crawled across the room. To Staci, guided by his voice.

He shakes his head free of his memories. Eyes the map one more time, tries to gauge the distance between what he believes is the Den and the Visitor's Center. Quarter mile between them, maybe. Find the main road and just follow its winding.

“I'll, uh, grab a few of these maps. To take with us,” he says, doing just that. With his left hand he keeps the walkie by his mouth and with his right he quickly folds the Cache map and the Outpost map within one another. After a second's hesitation, Staci shakes his head and collects every map he can find before rubberbanding them together. “I think I know where we are? Close to the Park's visitor center.”

“Good. Good job.” Jacob coughs wetly and groans. “Look at you, Peaches. Can't fucking believe it. Wouldn't if someone had told me this yesterday.”

Staci blushes as he searches the rooms for a backpack. Finds one next to the milk crates of vinyl, teal with CONNIE stitched towards the handle in white letters, and dumps the contents out on the floor. Rolled up clean socks, a pocket knife (which Staci snags), a beat up copy of a HOPE COUNTY PUBLIC SCHOOLS copy of _Animal Farm_. Old school papers, some in folders some outside, loose change, and half-wrapped sticks of gum. A bloody teddy bear and a photo with cracked glass.

Staci gazes at it sadly, wondering what happened to the family.

People only join resistances for two reasons: defense and revenge. And it's pretty safe to say which of the two caused this particular enlistment.

Wonders which of the Seed family killed them. Smiles sadly, guilty, because he already knows his answer.

Three young girls, all beneath the age of fourteen, a teenage boy in a band t-shirt with long black braids, and four adults – parents and grandparents, Staci presumes – all smile up at him from beneath their cracked panel. Arms around each other, squeezed in tight. They look like Natives, Crow maybe.

It takes a second for it to sink in, but he's pretty sure the boy with the braids had been in the decoy bunker.

His hands shake as he sets the photo and the teddy bear on top of the milk crate. When he rises from his crouch, he feels old, dirty.

“Gonna have to – gonna have to change somethings back at the Compound,” Jacob mumbles, almost to himself, as Staci flits around the bunker. He grabs more food, water, and ammunition and shoves it into the empty backpack. His bounty rustles as he moves around the bunker, quickly hunting for things that may be useful.

He's just made an inquisitive sound and unearthed a box of grenades and dynamite when Jacob speaks again.

“You could have just let them kill me.” He holds the button of his walkie even as he finishes his sentence. Lets Staci hear him breathe. “I didn't expect to make it out of there. Didn't deserve it.”

“Jacob,” Staci whispers to himself, hand hovering above a stick of dynamite. Doesn't want to interrupt, doesn't want to move a muscle in case he breaks the spell Jacob's under.

“Wouldn't have blamed you. If you had managed to escape and left me, I would – I would've just fucked with that bitch more until she spiraled and killed me. Seeing you real, seeing you _there_ , after I'd been fucking hallucinating you for a day and a half. Thought you were in there to help her at first. Almost lost my shit.” He chuckles. “Would've deserved it, too. Deputy Pratt running with the Resistance.” More rustling, like he's settling in, getting comfortable. His words are heavy, weighted down like a man in the river with cinderblocks around his ankles. Struggles against both them and the tide but can't seem to stop himself from sinking. “And then you – you fucking _shot her_. Clean to the forehead. You – you looked _deranged_ , covered in blood. Wild. So fucking Beautiful, God.”

Knees weak and chest burning, eyes swimming, _Only you Only you Only you_ , Staci lowers himself to a nearby chair and holds his walkie in front of him. Hands wrapped reverently around its base.

“I'm not—I don't _deserve—_ ” A disgusted, harsh sound. He removes his finger from the broadcast button and Staci sits up quickly, whining. “I've made you say it and haven't – God, fuck.” Again, his finger off the button.

Staci's practically falling out of his seat. The burning inside of him threatens to eat him alive. Set him and the Wolf's Den ablaze. Consume the mountainside.

Then static crackles and softly, almost inaudibly, Jacob says, “I'm not Good, I'm not a lot of things, but,” a shudder, a shaky exhale; Staci's world hanging in the balance, “but I'm Yours.”

Staci's out of his chair and up the ladder in a flash. The fire in his chest has made its way to his eyes as he looks down at Jacob Seed, resting wearily against the rock he laid him against. The smile on his face is jagged, doublesided. Love and Weakness, Victory and Surrender.

He collapses to his knees and yolks Jacob forward by the collar of his hoodie to kiss him hard. Chapped, bloody lips to chapped bloody lips, tasting Jacob's blood in his mouth again. Tangy and warm, familiar. The quiet sounds of pain Jacob makes are swallowed up happily, eagerly, as Staci crawls in as close as he can get and kisses him for all he's worth. Sucks on his tongue and holds his jaw in his hand so, so gently. Fingertips brushing the healing circle of a scarring bite.

“Say it,” he whispers, forehead to forehead. His skin is slippery with fever sweat. “Jacob, say it. To my face, s _ay it._ ” Trembles against him, like a leaf in a hurricane.

Jacob's less injured hand cards through his hair. Blue eyes on his face hazy and warm, like the wildfire burning through Staci has eaten into him, too. A shared madness, an inferno for two. Sliding his gaze down to Staci's own healing scars, overlapping in a fucked up heart, Jacob's. “Yours.”

-

In silence they make the trek up behind the Wolf's Den and toward the main road. Jacob is a long line against his body, a heavy weight against his side. He stumbles more than once but always manages to jerk and catch himself before his superior size can bring them tumbling to the ground.

His lips are swollen and fucked out in the moonlight.

They make it a three fourths of the way to the Visitor's center when they find a car. It's riddled with bullets and missing its rear window, but when Jacob insists on being taken to the driver's seat and proceeds to expertly expose wires, its engine quietly turns over and the door ajar alarm _ding ding ding's_ in the quiet night.

Once they start driving, all of the energy seems to leave Jacob. He uses the rest of his strength to ease the passenger's seat down before his good arm is draped over his face and he's out like a light. Injured arm cradled to his chest, body turned toward Staci.

Staci steps hard on the gas and sends them flying down the mountainside.

For about ten minutes he's the only car on the road, a beat up dark blue blur in the night. They whiz passed running deer and posed, sacrificed sinners. With his lead foot on the gas, he hits his head on the roof more than once. Jostles Jacob in sleep that is less sleep and more passing out.

They pass a small outcropping of Chosen at one of Jacob's checkpoints before Staci realizes it. The men there are on high alert and shoot at their car, piercing through the side panel and blowing out another window.

Staci shifts his foot off the gas to press _hard_ on the break, body snapping forward. He has the sense to throw his arm out to brace Jacob as he lurches forward, impacting solidly with Staci's elbow. They slide for what feels like forever and nearly careen into the metal railing, over the lip and into the air. The front bumper love taps it when they're finally stopped.

The breath in his lungs is tinged with iron, the fear and adrenaline ramping through him, heady like the taste of a penny in his mouth. He breathes heavily against the steering wheel as cultists swarm his car.

“Get out of the car, sinner!” a man screams. The muzzle of his shotgun digs into Staci's cheek.

“Oh, fuck. Oh, shit, that's Jacob!” says the woman beside him.

They both crowd in closer, staring at him with huge eyes. The man's shotgun droops in his arms. They don't seem to know what to make of this, an unknown Sinner with their Herald passed out in his passenger's seat.

“I need you,” Staci huffs, clenching and unclenching his fists around the steering wheel, “to radio ahead to Joseph. He's – he's injured and he wants Joseph, okay? Fucking radio ahead and let me _go_.”

“Go! We'll have someone meet you further down the line and escort you,” the man says. He hasn't taken his eyes off Jacob. He looks ready to cry.

Behind him, the woman has already ran back to their checkpoint and yanked a radio to her mouth. Staci can make out the incredulous volume of her words, but not the content itself.

Tears fill Staci's eyes as well. “He's gonna be fine,” he tells the man, who nods eagerly, wishing desperately to be convinced.

Then he's off faster than before. He doesn't bother with sticking to his lane as he passes the Grandview, where a small fleet of white cult trucks rip out of its gates and flank him on all sides. The men and women inside look just as overwhelmed as the two up at the first checkpoint, desperately trying to look inside the car in the middle of their midst for a peak at their wayward Herald.

The land flattens out the further down the mountain they go, and somehow Staci convinces the car to go even faster. He bounces over even the slightest bump in the road. Has to throw his arm out more than once to stabilize Jacob on a sharp turn, presses a hand to where he knows his MONSTER carving is to keep him down. Draws his hand back wet and sticky with fresh blood.

They're joined by more and more cult trucks. They honk and holler as they barrel towards the compound, running sinners off the road. Most recover fully, just end up shaken, but a couple go hurtling into trees. One goes flying into the river, but Staci's moving so quickly he doesn't seen more than the car becoming airborne.

Staci doesn't give a fuck about those people. Not even the cultists. More than one cult truck spirals out into a cloud of dust behind their procession. The others just crowd in closer, removing any gaps.

Only Jacob.

He feels manic with it, like he had been electrocuted instead of Jacob. Knuckles rigged and white around the steering wheel. His wounds aching with how stiff he's made his body, chest practically pressed to the wheel, spine straight. As if leaning forward will make their vehicle go any faster.

When they turn onto Joseph's Compound's driveway, it's lined with more than just concrete and barbed wire. There are cultists lining the sides of the road, pressed with their backs against the fence. Some have candles flickering in their grips. They sing, heralding them Home.

Staci's never driven drunk, not once in his life, but he wonders if this could be considered driving while intoxicated, while Blissed.

The tires s _creeeech_ as he peels in through the Compound's main gates. The cultists' singing fills the cab of the car as Staci shakily puts the vehicle in park and flies out to Jacob's side. His knees knock together, hands quivering so hard before him he can't even open the God damn door.

He's crying, futilely trying to make his body cooperate, when there's a warm, weighted hand on his forearm. Tan skin and long, spindly fingers with a homemade rosary wrapped around them, around his wrist. The Starburst Cross dangles from the rosary, right beneath the center of his palm.

Staci doesn't startle. Seems to calm immediately, though he still cries. His sobs are gentler, now, his emotions still spilling over but dammed slightly.

Standing to his side is Joseph Seed, immaculately dressed in his best church clothes. Widow's peak and his angular, almost catlike face. He looks unruffled spare his eyes, wide wide wide behind his signature yellow lenses. They flit between Staci and his brother, unresting. Like he can divulge what happened to them and how to fix it just by taking them in over and over.

“Calm, Staci Pratt,” Joseph says, words thick and sweet, warm in the cool autumn air. The hand on his arm tightens, but not painfully. He draws in closer and urges Staci's arm forward, willing him to open the car door. The _ding ding ding_ of the car alarm sobers Staci a little. “Calm. Just as God would not let you take me, He will not let Jacob leave us. Do you Believe?”

No.

Yes.

He doesn't know.

Standing beside Joseph in the middle of his Compound with the cultists crying, singing, rejoicing the return of their Red Herald, Staci honestly doesn't know. His thoughts are so muddled, it feels like he's swimming in a tar pit.

But he Believes in Jacob, no matter how fucked up this all is.

“Yes,” he breathes. The word rattles out of his throat. Shatters at Joseph's feet.

Joseph's grip is painful now, clean cut nails digging crescents into the soft meat of his forearm. The tips of his cross emblem knick the top of his hands, the already ruined skin of his wrist. The pain is Clarifying. Eden's Gate's metaphorical and physical hooks in him, together at last.

“Good, my Child.” Pleasure softens Joseph's face. Sated by this new Submission. “There is a room prepared, and a doctor. Let us get our dear Jacob some help, shall we?”

With the help of the Father, they get Jacob into a small, clean little building. White sheets and white flowers and white, clean walls. No Madness here but what they willfully bring inside.

The cultists singing echoes out into the night, full and melodious.

Across the water at the Elk Jaw Lodge, the Resistance members shudder and shake, the night dark, open and menacing, like the maw of a great beast.


	8. Chapter 8

The doctor gives Staci a once over as soon as the door closes. He's a slight man, balding and rail thin, nearing seventy if Staci had to peg an age. His face droops like an old hound dog and the glasses on the bridge of his nose make his watery gray eyes look huge, listless and bland like a smoothed river rock.

After a moment, he looks somewhat satisfied and says, “Your wounds are less severe, we'll get to you as soon as Mr. Seed has been stabilized.”

And that's the last time he addresses Staci at all.

He flits around Jacob's bedside with two nurses, speaking calmly and quietly to them as he directs them to and fro. If he's not speaking to them, he's speaking to Joseph, _Father_ this and _Father_ that.

Staci doesn't mind, used to being looked over Before the cult and even After this whole situation with Jacob took a left turn, so long as he's allowed to remain in the room. Close to Jacob as he can be without getting in the way. He perches at the foot of the bed in a handmade white-painted wooden chair, idly rubbing his blood stained hands in his lap. He's tired, wiped out, but doesn't know what his fight or flight drive would do if the doctor unwisely tried to evict him from his rightful place at Jacob's side.

He's already killed five people tonight for Jacob, what's one more?

Joseph remains standing, but directly beside Staci. Hand warm on Staci's shoulder, kneading the flesh as absently as Staci rings his hands. His face is carefully blank, but his eyes give him away.

 _Must be a family trait_ , Staci muses, thinking of flashes of blue burn, burn, burning into his soul. A darkened, locked house with open windows, curtains dancing in the breeze.

The Father is calm, cool, collected; unruffled as always. His voice does not shake when the doctor asks him clarifying questions about Jacob's medical history – whether he has allergies or takes any medications that Joseph knows of. But he has just recently lost one brother. To have another, the Eldest, unshakable, stoic Jacob, almost taken from him so soon, when the loss of John is still a raw wound in his heart—it seems to have rocked him on the inside. New fine lines around his eyes, his mouth, etched by the threat of another great loss. Back mostly straight but weary, tired, like the weight of all of this is beginning to get to him.

The doctor pops up from where he's bent over Jacob. In the soft lighting of their little white hospital room, Jacob's blood and the doctor's own sweat gleam on his forehead. “Father,” he says, “he's going to need a blood transfusion. Are you—”

“I'll do it.” Staci is standing before the doctor has even finished speaking, left arm extended in offering. Thinks of Jacob's dog tags shining in the moonlight, O- punched into metal. “Our blood types are compatible, le-let me do it. Take mine.”

_Mine mine mine, blood of my blood, coursing through his veins, take mine._

Magnified gray eyes don't even consider him. They don't leave the Father's face, but when Joseph chuckles quietly and gives his affirmative, the doctor turns to one of his nurses and instructs her to retrieve the donation.

Her hands are cool and soft as she attempts to lead him to the corner of the room, her voice light and gentle as she instructs him. Quiet, like he's a horse she's trying not to spook.

He does not, cannot, will not leave Jacob's bedside. Even for the corner. He digs his heels in and insists he be allowed to stay in his spot. A horse neighing, thrashing its head, stubbornly refusing to move. “No, we can do it right here, I don't—just take the blood here.”

She's just opened her mouth to say something back to him when Joseph cuts her off. “It's quite alright. Do the procedure right here, please, my Child.”

Her cheeks are furiously pink as goes about collecting what she'll need to draw his blood.

Heart racing, Staci grips the railing of the bed before him and clenches until his knuckles whiten. Any distance is too great a distance. Even sitting at the end of the bed makes him anxious, already used to pressing himself into Jacob's warm side, dwarfed by his superior size.

Joseph's voice quiet above the doctor instructing the other nurse, “Sh, Staci. It's okay—I won't allow you to be removed from this room. After all you've done for my brother, I dare say I owe it to you.”

His entire body tingles with Joseph's words. Warmth like sunshine, like baptism in a hot spring.

Up in the Whitetails, the cultists talked about the Father so reverently, hanging on his every sermon, while Jacob was more reserved. He believed in _Joseph_ , not so much the Father, but did as he was instructed. Less out of faith and more out of love. He would've followed Joseph into the bowels of Hell itself if he had been asked.

Spending all of his time with Jacob instead of the other Faithful, Staci had been mostly removed from the sway of Joseph's words – a radio sermon here, a Bible reading there. Enough to know the power of his preachings but spared from the full brunt of the man's charismatic beliefs.

Here in this room, though, the smell of Bliss and blood heavy in the air, the cultists singing their joy out into the night, the Father touches him fully. His nerves are frayed and exposed and the Father's words just seep right in, clawing into his body via his opened wounds and his bleeding, aching heart. Staci's glad he's still close to his chair because his knees suddenly feel weak. Hopes the smile he gives in return as he collapses into it doesn't look too bewitched, too Blissed.

The nurse cleans his forearm and then situates a blood pressure cuff and a tourniquet around his bicep. His knee bounces as she pumps the cuff full, until his arm is tingling, prickly with the inability to circulate his blood.

“Tell me what happened,” Joseph says. It's as much to calm Joseph's mind as it is about taking Staci's off of what's going around.

“They, uh, they caught some high ranking Resistance members a couple days ago.” Swallows hard as the nurse retrieves her needle and the empty blood bag. Looks back at Joseph, warmth in his eyes, encouraging smile. “Interrogated them and, uh – got the location to the Wolf's Den. What they thought was the Wolf's Den. It was a decoy.”

Burn of the needle pushing into his arm. Breath quietly, shakily, punched out of his body.

“A decoy,” Joseph hums, encouraging him to continue.

“The Resistance's version of a cyanide capsule, I guess. Gets them a swift death and hopefully takes some of their enemies down, too.” Upon instruction from the nurse, Staci makes a fist with his left hand and squeezes. Squeeze, release, squeeze, release. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see the bag steadily rise, filling with his blood.

“Lucky for us cyanide can be counteracted.” Sharp, white teeth gleaming in the low light.

“Didn't know it until we were inside that something was off. Felt – felt wrong. Like a model home, y'know? Tried to warn him but it was already too late.” Blinded blue eyes searching for him. Jacob on his knees, crawling. “Killed everyone there but he and I. They didn't know what to do with me and they, uh – they wanted to draw it out for him.”

“Well, thank God you were there, Staci. Had you not been, I would be mourning Jacob while the loss of John is still so fresh.” His smile twitches, the corners drooping in memory of his sadness. Shoulders slumping before they resolutely rise once more. Blue eyes steeled, smile recovering for Staci's sake as well as his own.

Calm facade back in place, but Staci knows where the edges are, now, can just make them out in the low light. The little peaks of Joseph through the Father's armor are humbling.

He smiles, love drunk, at Joseph and is rewarded with his hand on his shoulder again, kneading deeply.

“What about in the Wolf's Den? How do you escape?” prompts Joseph after a few minutes of relative silence.

Staci opens his mouth to tell the tale when the nurse quietly says _all done_ and gingerly pulls the needle from his arm. He's jarred from his thoughts by his arm being lifted, elevated above his head.

“Hm, Staci?” Joseph in his immediate space, closer than before. No longer rubbing his shoulder, his neck, but applying pressure to a piece of gauze placed over the needle mark. Other hand encouraging Staci's arm to lengthen, braceleted around his bloody wrist. Idly dragging his nails against dried blood, flaking it off Staci's skin.

“They were going to kill me,” he whispers, watching the muscles as they minutely flex in Joseph's hand. Thin and delicate where Jacob's are thick and calloused. Unblemished, unbroken. None missing their nails. “Figured I'd be too broken t-to go on. After Jacob.”

“You do not look broken to me, Staci Pratt. You look Strong.” Pride at the Father noticing his strength. Warmth again, singing through his veins. Like his blood had been harvested for Jacob and in its place liquid sunshine was poured. “What did you do?”

When Joseph lowers his arm, the nurse tapes the gauze to his skin. Staci curls it protectively across his abdomen and looks away from Joseph to Jacob. Pale in his bed, forehead sweaty. Chest rising and falling shallowly. Alive, so very alive. Strong.

Captor, torturer, bedmate, _mine mine mine_. Fucked up but Staci's fucked up.

“I killed them.” Barely audible above the quiet working of the medical staff. An exhale after holding his breath for so long. “I killed everyone there. It was Us or Them and I-I-I _chose_.”

His chin is lifted, and then Joseph's forehead is pressed to his. “And choose Right you did, my Son. Just as Jacob rightfully chose you at the very Beginning, you have chosen him right back. He saw something in you from the very first, and while I dare say _this_ might not have been what he saw...I thank God you were there for him. Devoted to him even when given the easy way out.”

Joseph's voice smells sweet on his face, like fruit. Pomegranates, maybe.

Staci keens quietly. Head dizzy from the praise and the blood loss, the exhaustion. He wraps his hand loosely around Joseph's wrist and squeezes gently. “I didn't let them take him,” he whispers, eyes teary. “I _won't_ let them take him.”

“No one will take him from us,” Joseph whispers, “God will not allow it.”

-

There are two large metal basins of steaming water at the floor of Jacob's makeshift hospital bed. Their waters had been clear, one soapy while the other pure, but a few minutes ago. Freshly delivered by two young cultists as eager to deliver this round of bathing water as they were the first and the second. So careful not to spill any on the floor, to impress and serve their Father and Herald. The scent of lavender trails them in and out of the little white room, so different from the smells Staci associates with Jacob.

He thinks of the scented product in Jacob's spartan shower, masculine and clean, sharp. Bursts of mint and musk. Citruses and cedar. So unlike the cloying floral scent hanging thickly in the air around them, playing at masking the scent of blood. Of a hospital room so far removed from the world.

As Staci rings out his washcloth, the basin of clean hot water turns pink, frothy with soap, then red-brown all at once. Grime and Jacob's blood swirling around the water before him.

For the last forty-five minutes, Staci has been diligently spongebathing Jacob. There's a lot of him the water should not touch—the thirty-one sutures the doctor had given him, the dressed bullet wound in his shoulder, the nasal splint, the cast holding together his mangled left hand, the needles in his left forearm just above the cast intravenously administering fluids, antibiotics and Staci's own blood.

A lot of him, period, and most of that needing cleaning.

Staci, needing something to occupy his shaky hands and shakier thoughts—the adrenaline had left him so quickly, numbed him, hollowed him save the _psst_ of his stolen gun and the memory of lives ended by Staci's own hand, not so shaky then, but still and sure—had volunteered to bathe him. Clean out the wounds the water and soap could get near to better aid the antibiotics and Jacob's healing.

Joseph had been pleased, but not surprised by the offer. Encouraged by it as he had been by Staci's offer of blood. He had looked at Staci with those all-knowing blue eyes, thin lips curved in a soft smile, and went to fetch one of his flock to bring them the things they'd need. He'd whistled as he'd gone, _Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound_.

Staci doesn't know if Jacob had told them the extent of their... _relationship_ , as suddenly as it had morphed into one, catching and taking over like wildfire, but he's got the feeling not much escapes Joseph Seed, especially when it comes to his Family. Staci's pretty much told him everything without telling him anything in detail, anyway.

_...I won't let them take him..._

_...devoted to him..._

He doesn't even know what Joseph's version of God has to say about homosexuality, and though he spends a good chunk of time worrying it like a loose tooth, cleansing Jacob's body with his tongue clamped tight between his teeth, he dreads having the topic brought up.

There's a washcloth in Joseph's hand, as well, and they alternate who rinses their cloth and who scrubs at Jacob. While Staci works to get the blood and grime and soap out of his washcloth, Joseph methodically cleans Jacob's long, limp right leg. Pinked, free of dirt and blood, little red hairs swirling and damp plastered to his calf. Most of his body cleaned by now, save his hair and his genitals.

The washcloth scratches softly against Jacob's skin, rasping in the quiet of the room - the only sound besides their breathing now that the cultists have sung themselves out and the medical staff have left.

Knowing what he knows about the Seeds, Staci had expected to have his head talked off – maybe _popped_ off so Joseph could take a look inside. A second round of questioning, delving deeper into the heart of things. Ascertain if little Staci Pratt was good enough for the eldest Seed, the soldier, the Red Herald. _Do you Believe?_ asked again now that Staci could see clearly, free of tears and adrenaline and _please don't let him die._

Instead their silence is companionable and easy, like Staci had been part of the Family for ages.

Content with the cleanliness of his cloth, Staci rises from a crouch and sways hard. His vision shifts and shudders in counterpoint, throwing his mostly empty stomach into upheaval. Dizzy, like the floor beneath him is shaking.

 _God, please don't let me vomit and pass out on the Father_ , he thinks hysterically. Bile and mostly digested strawberry granola bars on Joseph's dark wood floors, his suede cognac loafers.

Then there's a damp hand stabilizing him. Joseph is much stronger than his lithe form suggests, his grip tight and sturdy around Staci's bicep. He pulls Staci towards him, then uses his free hand to brace Staci's other side – spidery fingers cool and moist as they come to rest on Staci's hip, beneath his dirty shirt. His hand is smaller than Jacob's, more delicate. Pianist's hands. An orchestral maestro with a Bible or a rifle instead of a conducting baton, ordering his flock to and fro with a smile and a flick of a delicate wrist.

“Careful, there,” he says, chuckling softly. The hand on his bicep squeezes, then begins to knead. Fingertips pressing into his muscle, thumb rubbing the junction between his shoulder and his pec. “Maybe I should finish here, hm? You might not be as worse for wear as Jacob, but you still need rest. Let me call the doctor back in so he can treat your nose and the abrasions on your wrists.”

“M'fine,” Staci says, and with the Father's calming hands on him he truly does feel better. He hasn't even thought about his stuffed up, achy nose or his bloody, raw wrists since the Wolf's Den, but now as if hearing themselves be mentioned the pain begins to trickle back in. “Just stood too quickly.”

Blue eyes calmly study him. The thumb rubbing stripes into his skin presses a little harder into the meat of his body, and Staci is keenly aware of how silently his thumbpad passes over the material of his shirt. Joseph's skin less calloused, more tenderly treated than Jacob's. Fixated on that detail, catching on it like too dry skin.

“I am not my brother, Staci Pratt, I will not judge you for falling prey to weariness, as all men do. You have been through a lot, my Child. You have brought my brother home to me and cared for him with a devotion I was afraid he would never experience.” The smile on his face is small. Sadness hangs onto the edges of it as something flickers through his eyes. “We are almost finished here, anyway. I can wash his hair and private parts while you get treatment.”

“You don't, uh, you don't have to do that. I – I'll do it. He'd rather me do it, I think,” Staci says quietly. Desperate to preserve Jacob's modesty and how bathing him seems to keep Staci out of his own head. Too focused on Jacob to focus on himself, his actions.

“It wouldn't be anything I haven't already seen.” Soft humor bringing the tips of his smile up more, chasing away the darkness of his thoughts. “But if you'd like, I could wash his hair while you finish up the rest of his body.”

Joseph calls another cultist to bring what they'll need—one last round of fresh water, more clean towels and washcloths, and a smaller, dipped basin to wash Jacob's hair and beard in.

“Do you, uh...do you have anything that doesn't smell quite so floral?” Staci asks before the cultist leaves the room, an elderly woman this time. His cheeks burn as he looks away from her and Joseph's amused, inquisitive eyes. “Don't know how fond he'd be of lavender in his hair.”

“So thoughtful,” Joseph purrs. “Retrieve the shampoo from my shower, please, Carol.” When the cultist takes her leave, Joseph laughs quietly and covers Jacob's leg with the bedsheet. “Are you like this with my brother, this bold?”

Staci's stomach falls. The threat of vomit flares up within him as his panic begins to rise. He had not thought his request insolent, but somewhere he had miscalculated.

Again, Joseph's hand on his skin. Anchoring. “I did not mean that in a bad way,” Joseph quietly says. His words are soothing, meant to balm the obviously peaking anxiety building within Staci. “Jacob does not allow many to care for him the way he should. Sometimes he barely allows me in, to know him. I was merely asking if he's allowed you in.”

 _Let me in, let me in, let me in_ , chanted desperately into his skin on the floor of Jacob's quarters.

 _Let me in_ , crushed against his lips in a too hot stairwell, thunder crashing overhead.

The door opens and three cultists flood the room, each carrying a steaming water basin with towels warming beneath. At Joseph's instruction, two are placed by Staci and the third is brought up to the head of the bed, the towels stacked on the lower right corner near Jacob's foot. The scent wafting out of them is different, no longer cloyingly floral. Something subtly masculine, woodsy instead. Staci watches bubbles form and pop until the door clicks closed and they're alone once more.

“Staci?” Though Joseph is in his space, it sounds like he's calling from far away.

“He's been beginning to. This – we – it's all very sudden. It hadn't always been like this for us.”

Had they always been working up to this? The last month or so, Jacob had been gentler, sharp teeth and biting wit retracted just enough to not lacerate Staci at the drop of a hat.

 _Enlighten me_ , Staci's burning cheeks and Jacob so, so close. Close enough to smell, to taste the air Jacob's just expelled.

Did Rook's defeat at Faith's hands expedite this _Thing_ between them? Frenzy Jacob into going against the schedule nature, that _Fate_ had quietly mapped out for them. Did the decoy bunker and subsequent shitstorm at the Wolf's Den solidify it?

Had there ever been any other ending in store for them? For him? Misery and joy always inextricably woven.

_I'm not Good, I'm not a lot of things, but, but I'm Yours._

Jacob's blood in his mouth, little hurt sounds vibrating on Staci's tongue.

_Yours._

Staci makes a quiet sound, wounded.

“I am glad he has you. The road to what you have now is hard won, I'm sure. I can only imagine how it must have been for you before Jacob began lowering his walls.” Painful. Excruciating. Tearing Staci apart and using the pieces to craft something new, something altogether different.

Something that could one day be willed to kill for him.

Love him, even. Halting and stumbling and so, so painful, but a type of Love all the same.

"It will be better now. The two of you will come together Stronger, fortified by your shared suffering, your shared affections, and your strength shall steel and strengthen the Family as a whole.”

“Do you really believe so?” Staci's reminded of his Abuela's quiet disgust as support for gay marriage began to grow, of how his heart _ached_ to share his joy with her only to learn he had to shut off those parts of himself when she was around. Being not only accepted for this but having it _rejoiced in_ right before his eyes has his desperate, aching heart thudding against his ribcage. Desperate to fly out of his chest and into the warm embrace of the Father.

Needy, so needy he'd willfully overlook all of the things throwing colors at him.

Their foreheads meet again. “There is nothing purer in the eyes of God than Love, my Child.”

-

After they finish cleaning Jacob, Joseph insists that he get cleaned and checked out, himself.

He sits on the edge of Jacob's bed and allows the doctor to quietly clean and splint his nose, to disinfect and bandage his mangled wrists. Eats the bowl of soup Joseph carefully spoonfeeds him, not tasting it as he dutifully swallows each mouthful. He's on autopilot, eyelids heavy, and Joseph's warm, melodic voice keeps him in almost a dreamlike state.

The passage of time is choppy, illusive like smoke. He struggles at first to stay awake, stay aware, but soon he just gives in, swaddled in the Father's comforting presence.

Before he knows it, he's naked in a cramped shower stall, enveloped in steam. Over the din of the falling water he can hear Joseph singing to himself in the other room as he roots around in his drawers for something that might fit Staci.

He washes quickly and efficiently, with the same woodsy scented soap they had used on Jacob's hair and beard. The smell of it jars him back to his senses a little. Makes him desperate to get back to Jacob's side, even if he crashes as soon as they're reunited.

Joseph seems to have anticipated his eagerness, as he's ready with a clean set of clothes as soon as Staci's shut off the water and exited the stall. Towel wrapped loosely around his waist, water dripping from his hair and into his eyes.

He's dressed with little input from his own body, Joseph maneuvering him to and fro like a doll, speaking softly, calmly, to him the entire time. A Father taking care of His exhausted Child.

From somewhere far away, the last of Staci's rational thought wails and shrieks for him to resist. Tells him that he'll never be free of them if he gives away any more of himself.

If this is the spider's web, the wolf's den, the end of all things – it's not so bad.

The Voice is silenced, and it feels final, complete. Body and Soul given to the Family, the old Staci completely detached and removed.

Joseph's clothes are warm and smell heavenly, and his smile and indulgent laugh as Staci crawls into Jacob's bed lull him into a dreamless sleep.

-

Before his eyes are even open, Jacob's aware of three things.

The first is Staci Pratt, smushed against his side. His breath is hot on Jacob's bare ribs, puffing moistly on his tender skin. Body curled into Jacob's own, ice block feet wrapped around Jacob's ankle. Jacob's good hand clutched tightly between both of Staci's own.

No one else would _dare_ get in his personal space like this, save maybe Joseph, but the way he clings like a monkey and those god damn frozen feet press against him give him away.

The second is the smell of Bliss in the air and the distinct muting of pain in his body, which means he's far, far away from the Wolf's Den. Safe, sound.

And the third is the set of eyes on him. The thought of being watched makes him tense up, makes Staci protest quietly against him in his sleep, but then he's reminded of where he must be and all of the fight begins to leave him.

“You taking to watching people sleep, huh, Joe?” Jacob croaks. Eyes still shut, he smiles loosely when Joseph chuckles, found out.

“I've only been here for about fifteen minutes. I came in to see if young Staci Pratt was up for breakfast but it seems like he has other plans.” Jacob can hear the indulgent smile in Joseph's tone, and it sounds like acceptance. His brother's blessing.

“Little monkey, isn't he,” Jacob huffs, amused. He opens his eyes to gaze down at the shock of dark hair pressed against him, against the stark white sheets and the white walls around them. Notes distantly that Staci's hair is clean, soft. Smells like Joseph. Something inside him puffs up its chest to protest, eager to mark and reclaim what is rightfully his, and he quietly pushes it away. Shelves it for later.

“And you're lucky to have him.” All of the levity in his voice is extinguished, snuffed out like fingers pressed to a burning candlewick. “ _I_ am lucky you have him, or else I would be mourning the loss of another brother.”

“Joe—”

“Do not _Joe_ me,” Joseph huffs, his voice caught somewhere between stern Father and concerned Brother. When Jacob meets his gaze, Joseph's face is pinched, brow furrowed. It accentuates his growing widow's peak, makes him look years older than he is.

There's a Bible in his lap that he idly fiddles with, rolling the tip of a page between his fingers.

“If it hadn't been for him, they would be doing God knows what to you and I—” Their shared gaze is broken, Joseph looking above his head instead of into his eyes. “I cannot lose another, Jacob. I will _not_ lose another. I said _together_ we will march to Eden's Gate, and we _will_ be together. John will—John we will just have to meet there, yes?”

Quietly, Jacob grunts an affirmative. Struggles to sit up a little and not disturb his bed partner.

“He's told me a little about the ambush.” The MONSTER etched into Jacob's now exposed skin draws Joseph's eye. It pinches his face even more, like he had swallowed something bitter and jagged. Speaks around the hurt in his mouth. “You'd be dead if not for him.”

“I _should_ be dead, especially for him.” Whenever he thinks about it, the _psst_ of Staci's gun and the bullet ending Tammy Barnes's life, Jacob's as shocked as he was the first time, bound and out of it and at the mercy of those around him.

Expected Staci's righteous, justifiable retribution, and instead got Staci's devotion, his Strength. His quiet keening and the soft impact of his knees against the concrete floor as he collapsed before Jacob and set about freeing him.

“He cares for you a great deal. Got you here to me. Gave you his blood, sweat, and tears. Literally, in all three cases.”

Jacob can just make out the little white piece of gauze tucked into the crook of Staci's arm, pressed against Jacob's side. Without conscious thought, he curls his own arm up around the needle that had introduced Staci's blood straight into his veins.

“I don't deserve—”

“Do not finish that sentence.” Whip quick, the words rumble in Joseph's throat like thunder. His body is coiled tightly, ready to spring into defense of Jacob _against_ Jacob. When he gets nothing more than a clicking swallow from his older brother, Joseph allows his muscles to release. Beneath his aching fingers, the corner of his page has ripped. Joseph smooths it over with the tips of his fingers before turning to a fresh once. “You have him, Jacob. Whatever might have happened in the Past is just that: in the Past.”

Jacob rolls the words around in his mouth. He wrinkles his nose even as he shifts his hand within Staci's to braid their fingers. Tethering them together even in the waves of Jacob's suddenly crippiling doubt. The soft, pleased sound against his skin tingles up and through his body, calms him. “It's just—”

“Whatever...methods you may have used to get you here seem to be justified, the end results being what they are. He's Stronger _and_ devoted to you, Jacob, and the Resistance has been crippled. Smooth over whatever imperfections your heart tells you to, but rest assured in the rightness of this.”

“Are you going to let me get in a word edgewise, or is this another sermon?” Jacob lessens the bite of his words with a laugh. Had anyone else but Joseph cut him off time and time again, they'd be dead by now.

A sigh, drawn out and long suffering. “It wouldn't be a sermon if you'd quit trying to martyr yourself.”

Jacob rubs at his face with his free hand, tired once more. Digs the corner of his cast into his orbital socket and scrubs until colors bloom in his eyes to avoid Joseph's aching, sad face. “I'll try, Joe.”

“You'll _succeed_ , Jacob. God will not let us fail.” The Bible in his lap is softly closed before Joseph rises to his feet. He calmly walks up to Jacob's side and squeezes his arm for a moment before turning to the IV's at his bedside. He fiddles with a dial and the urge to sleep hits Jacob even harder, blurring his vision. “Sleep. Rest more. I'll come back in a few hours to check on you both. I love you, Brother. Even more when you fight me, I love you.”

So drunk with Bliss, Jacob doesn't have the chance to reply.

Joseph Knows all the same.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i swear we're almost done, i'm just circling for an adequate place to land what has become my longest fic in Literal Years, guys. i'm so blown away by the responses, on here and on tumblr, and i'm so, so thankful that y'all have stuck around through my weird ass ramblings and this unexpected monster of a fic.


	9. Chapter 9

The first few days of Joseph-mandated bedrest are easy – there's so much Bliss coursing through his veins Jacob drunkenly wonders if it's washing out the blood Staci had given him.

He sleeps most of the time, Staci laying beside him. Sometimes sleeping, too, other times reading. Staring at the ceiling. Once, notably, crying, but Jacob had been too out of it to do more than just sink back into the Bliss.

He's hesitant to call it sleep, though. It's dreamless and empty, black like the back of his eyelids and _V_ _oid_ , no nightmares or military raids or Old Man Seed's whiskey breath and relentless belt.

No whimpering from John late in the night, tugging Jacob awake after he's wet the bed in nightmares of his own. Tears on his cheeks and blue eyes so, so afraid, _J-Jake I had a-a-a-an_ _accident_ , words whistling shakily through a gap in his teeth given to him by their Father. His tiny fist in Jacob's shirt after Jacob's calmed, bathed, and changed him, his nose pressed to Jacob's throat. Soft whimpers and softer tremors as he falls into a fitful sleep in the cage of Jacob's scarred arms.

No thousand yard stare from an eleven-year-old Joseph, gaunt and wordless through his third beating of the week. Empty watery blue eyes as Jacob cleans a gash partially hidden in his hairline. Hands shaking in barely concealed rage, bloody peroxide-soaked cotton ball dragging through Joseph's hair. John crying quietly at their feet, arms tight around Jacob's legs, squished between the base of the toilet and the tub. _Hush now, Johnny,_ Joseph's voice distant and cold, empty empty empty, as he pets John's hair.

No cracking belt and whistling buckle against his bare back. The smell of blood and Jacob's grunts of pain keeping Joseph and John far away, safe at the top of the stairs. Listening for when their Father would finally tire and pass out so they could retrieve their brother. Jacob delirious with pain as Joseph dresses his lashings, as John steps into the role of comforter, petting Jacob's hair and kissing his brow as Jacob silently cries.

No Miller, crying and begging in the sands of the desert as Jacob beats him down. Takes what he has to to survive. Legs uncooperative, arms flailing, like a machine malfunctioning, _please please please Jake, Jake_ _ **NO**_ _please_!

Nothing.

It doesn't leave him feeling rested, leaves him feeling hollower than even his nightmares—sleep like falling, falling, falling, down an elevator shaft—but he'd begrudgingly admit that it was helpful in knitting his wounded body back together, quickly and efficiently, if nothing else.

The Bliss is heavy, oppressive - a windowless room in the summer baking him with no merciful breeze in sight, no chance of reprieve. He doesn't understand how most of Faith's Angels do this _willingly,_ because they enjoy it.

He feels helpless, irrational. Spiraling out of control.

His head full of cotton, his tongue too big, too dry for his mouth. Things crop up out of the corner of his eye, there one minute and gone the next. Unidentifiable but enough to set his teeth on edge, his back ramrod straight and his senses on high alert until the next wave of Bliss knocks him back under, adrift in a sea of sparkling black.

By the end of the third day, he manages to crest the wave of his latest dose and demand his dosage cut entirely, against the doctor's suggestions. The doctor's thin wrist encircled in his grip, _Mr. Seed I really do recommend you continue Treatment_ , bones creaking like old porch steps under Jacob's banked Wrath.

He doesn't even fucking look at Jacob, just gazes over at Joseph sitting at his beside with Staci. Shoulder to shoulder, chairs pressed flush, and as Jacob submerges himself in another wave of red to escape the _black_ he pockets that detail for later inspection.

Joseph gives another one of his famous long suffering sighs, like he's suddenly somehow older and been thrust into overseeing the care of an unruly younger sibling, before quietly agreeing to Jacob's demands. In the haze of being half-free from the Bliss, Jacob can just barely make out a scar ghosting through Joseph's widow's peak, one of the few remnants of Joseph before the Father.

-

The clarity it brings him is well worth the pain rushing back in, the old and the new. His aching hand and the pulsing pressure in his nose, the army of sutured cuts and gashes throbbing out of sync, one two four six three five five five. All of them red, like flashing lights on a control board.

System malfunction. System Error.

And the _withdrawal_ , fuck he hates the Bliss. His teeth chatter obnoxiously and his good hand shakes in Staci's grip the entire fourth day. Jacob's body slick with sweat. His breath rattling in his chest, heart thudding in its cage, like wagon wheels fitfully clopping down cobblestone.

“God damn Bliss,” he hisses, clenching around Staci's hand to keep it from sliding free. Staci would just reinsert his hand, calm as you please, patient like he's been this entire time, _saintlike_ , but the impotence of it all has Jacob struggling to maintain his Pride. Gnashing his teeth in a fury he can barely contain.

“It's been instrumental in your swift recovery,” Joseph chides, hand on Staci's shoulder. Clean tan skin against an olive henley Jacob's never seen before. Scent of Joseph's shampoo in the air, wafting at him from both of them, swirling, taunting. Staci's color high, his own wounds steadily clearing – he looks good, better than Jacob's seen him since he was dragged bodily from that crashed helicopter and locked away in the Mountains. Eyes clear, less haunted than Jacob remembers, than Jacob's caused.

Wonders if Joseph's fucked him, genial Fatherly hands pressing bruises into slim hips. Little pocks where his rosary bites into Staci's skin.

Semen on Staci's tongue like he's taking the fucking Eucharist.

Would Staci fight him? _Could_ Staci fight him? In Hope County, what's Jacob's is Jacob's but is also _Joseph's_ , also the Father's.

And little Staci Pratt, broken so pretty. Surprising Jacob at every turn. Drawing his attention, his Lust and his Wrath in equal, dizzying measure. Would Joseph be able to resist? Hold himself back from partaking in such beautiful destruction even with Jacob's name all but carved into him?

 _now there's a thought_ , _JACOB instead of PRIDE or LUST or SLOTH_

_JACOB JACOB JACOB, more undeniable than his heart-shaped bitemarks_

Would Staci cry in ecstasy or fear? Would he miss Jacob's body, his dick, his teeth, or would he submit to a so-called higher calling?

_too close too close too close, mine mine mine mine, back OFF_

Staci's hand creaks against his, barely audible over the grinding of Jacob's teeth and the harsh ringing in his ears. Two five three six four four two one, his aches and pains screaming out to join the cacophony.

In an attempt at reassurance, Staci squeezes back as much as he can with the feeling leaving his compressed fingers. He's seen withdrawal before working the Beat, seen it as a child the few times his Mother attempted to get help, but he's never seen it this fast, never seen it in Jacob. Never seen him spiral so badly, desperately trying to resurface. Waging war with both the Bliss and his own traitorous emotions.

It reminds him of Jacob's nightmares, of his thrashing body and the animal sounds ripping their way from his throat as he teeters between the Then and the Now, the world in his head and the world outside it. Moon-drenched, sweat-drenched, just like he is now, but entirely Different somehow, alien like the Bliss. Similarities but utterly parallel.

“Thanks but no thanks.” Teeth barred, nostrils flaring beneath their splint. He can feel minute tremors in Staci's skin, smell his anxiety spiking in the air. Body responding in pieces, totally out of Jacob's control. Gut warm and veins icy, aroused yet disinterested. No blood in his dick because it's all pounding in his skull, in the veins of his heart. “Can't – can't fucking _think_ in all that shit. Would rather have morphine or something - anything but the fucking Bliss.”

Joseph delicately wrinkles his nose, displeased by Jacob's vulgarity and hostility. Sensitive, delicate, for a man with LUST carved above his dick. “You cannot trust what They put into medicines nowadays, brother. The Bliss is pure, clean. Given to us from nature, from _God_. It will help so long as you let it.”

Like Jacob can trust the Bliss? He'd sooner try his hand with methamphetamines than Bliss again. Wonders idly the similarities between the two before the Red sweeps through him again, pulling him back under into a swirling pool of his own jumbled emotions.

“Don't fucking want it, Joe. Don't need it.”

Their eyes meet in a tense standoff, blue to blue. Brown eyes resolutely on the bedspread. Shoulders high and head low, like a child stuck between their fighting parents.

“So be it.” Joseph's shoulders slump a little, knock his hand a little further down Staci's body, from his shoulder to the lower sweep of his collarbone. The drag of it is loud in Jacob's ears, scratches like sandpaper. “I trust you will remain in bed to continue healing even without the Bliss?”

“For now,” Jacob concedes. Doesn't think he could stand on his own but does not admit it.

He watches as Joseph rises from his seat, as his hand drags up Staci's body slowly, slowly, until Joseph clasps his hands before himself. The mask of the Father slips over Joseph right before Jacob's eyes. Stony, serious, distant. Back straight, face devoid of humor, a parent preparing to verbally discipline their child.

It's like watching the light blink out of a man's eyes, the transition from his Brother to the Father.

“The doctor and I shall take our leave while you – collect yourself. Sleep and heal well, Brother. Know who it is that is helping you and try not to hinder our progress too much. I will see you in the morning for breakfast. Jacob. Staci.”

The Father leaves but doesn't take the charged air with him. The tension so heavy Staci can taste it, sharp and bitter, the ozone ripped open before a thunderstorm.

Staci watches Jacob's chest rapidly rise and fall in the moonlight pouring in from the nearby window. The dark blue shirt he's wearing is damp with sweat and sticks to his skin. Staci's wondering about the merits of offering another sponge bath when Jacob mumbles something incoherently.

He makes an inquisitive sound and lifts his eyes to find a set of nearly black ones trying to swallow him whole, peel his skin off one later at a time. The Bliss envelops practically all of his iris, the black of his pupil eating away at it like a living thing. Thin rings of blue, razor sharp, gutting. “Jacob?” he says, voice wavering. Less a word, more an exhale.

“I asked if you were fucking him.” Voice blank, even. Staci's reminded of the Shaving Incident and swallows hard. With Jacob, the calm before the storm is seldom a calm at all. The plunge, the fall before the impact. “It's alright if you are.”

Staci's not fucking stupid, he knows it'd be anything but. Has the mental image of himself strung up on the side of the road, BETRAYER instead of SINNER on a sigh above his head, written in his own blood. INFIDELIS, like in the Marines _hoo fuckin' rah._

Honestly, truthfully, he's not. Joseph has been nothing but kind and helpful since their arrival. He ensures Staci has food and clothing and even enrichment, like he's a new animal at the zoo Joseph is smitten with. He's touchy-feely but not in a way that sets Staci's alarms off.

Not completely, anyway. His hands linger sometimes, but that's just the way he is. His gaze sometimes too warm. The light reflecting off teeth too sharp, off eyes less watery blue than black.

Staci doesn't think about it.

He wouldn't seek him out, not That Way, but what would he do if he found himself in the situation? Delicate spindly fingers ill content with just lingering. Would he be guided onto his back again as easily as he was the first time, tears on his cheeks but legs spreading all the same? Jacob on his mind but Joseph, the Father, on his body. Even less of a way out than before on unsealed, bloodstained concrete, cultists singing in the distance.

“Staci. Are you fucking him?” Each word drawn out, harsh and final. Jacob's right hand unclenches only to clench lower on Staci's wrist, pulling him bodily forward. Bent over most of the trunk of Jacob's body. “You need to tell me and tell me now.” The cast on his left arm prevents him from carding his fingers through Staci's clean, feathery hair, so he settles for ghosting his fingertips over Staci's brow.

His head is whipping back and forth so quickly he's dizzy with it. Clicks against the cast near his face. Clips his nasal splint but Staci doesn't even register the discomfort. He's half in Jacob's bed before he's conscious of moving, and he's whining high in his throat as he pushes his face into Jacob's stomach. Frightened and desperate to prove his loyalty, especially with Jacob's hair trigger anger still swamped by the siren song of the Bliss washing over him again and again like the tide.

“No, no, no, no,” he chants. Nuzzling like a bitch in heat. Shaking like he's the one in withdrawal. “Don't want him, want _you_. Only you. Killed for You, G-God, Jacob. No one else.”

He can feel the anger slowly seep out of Jacob. Between one exhale and the next, Jacob's body is loose beneath him, his good hand rubbing up and down Staci's back. Would be scratching lightly, dragging his nails down the back of his shirt and birthing goosebumps had he actually had his nails.

“God damn Bliss,” Jacob hisses again. Shakes his head hard in attempt to rid himself of the lingering remnants of sparkling black, of the fog in his head that just _won't let him fucking think_. He looks down at Staci and taps once, twice in the center of his shoulderblades, urging his gaze up. Brown eyes wide but calming when they meet Jacob's own, still too much black, still hazy, but clearing.

“Mine, Staci,” he says quietly. Shuddering breath, watery smile, the corners of his lips barely risen before they've sunken again.

_Mine, Staci._

_Yours, Staci_.

 _Sorry, Staci_.

Staci shimmies up the bed to kiss him. “Yours,” he breathes, right into Jacob's open mouth.

-

Jacob Seed is a lot of things, but at the moment the only trait Staci can focus on is his stubbornness.

Jacob Seed is _supposed_ to be on bed rest, as he's been for the last five days.

Jacob Seed is distinctly _not_ in his bed.

Jacob Seed is bleeding.

“Jacob – Jacob! You're gonna pop more of your stitches if you don't _stop_.” Staci has his hands extended before him, reaching out to grip and direct his wayward _Whatever_ back into bed but hesitant to close that final gap. In this state, he's just as likely to actually steer Jacob successfully as he is to get a fist, an elbow, to the face.

Jacob on bedrest is Jacob tethered, leashed like a dog. Jacob on bedrest is snapping teeth and throaty protests and _Get Joe back in here, I'm tired of this fucking bed, Peaches._ Itching at the door to get out, a wolf with its muzzle shoving at the doorframe, the knob, anything to free it – even despite itself. Muzzle flecked with blood, scratches up and down its face. Whining and snarling in turns, hateful and pitiful.

Desperate for the Whitetails, for his own space. Joseph's Compound has his skin feeling too tight, even completely out of the Bliss's haze. Everything is too raw here, too close together. Too unknown, too many variables.

Too much, too much.

Joseph's sad, omnipotent blue eyes on him during meals. The Father's stern lecturing voice, like he's a fucking _child_ , an invalid, when he asks for updates, to work.

The way they both stand too close to Staci, to what's _his_.

Jacob can't shake the mental image of Joseph, of the Father, on top of Staci, and while Jacob's nearly positive Joseph would never...well. Well.

Jacob needs to finish licking his wounds in private, needs the comfort of total control of his surroundings. No memories of Bliss withdrawal fucking with his head.

Just he and Staci back in his quarters, in the room it where it all began.

He hasn't slept since getting out from under the Bliss and while he should be used to it after years of catnaps and too much caffeine, nightmares whenever he closed his eyes for prolonged periods – he's allowed himself to grow accustomed to waking up beside Staci mostly rested. It's fucking with his head, shredding his nerves, and while he'll take it to the black haze of Bliss and the red, shimmering sting of its withdrawal, he'd really rather just go Home.

Coming to Joseph wasn't a mistake, not necessarily, but he should have thought to set ground rules before passing out.

“I'm gonna pop all of them if we don't leave soon,” Jacob says quietly, arms braced on the windowsill. Outside their window, he can just make out the Elk Jaw Lodge.

They got word late yesterday afternoon that the Resistance was falling apart, and that in his absence the PIN-K0 Outpost group had taken it upon themselves to reclaim lost territories in retaliation.

Jacob's flag billows in the distance, white starburst on black cloth.

His guts simultaneously sing with Pride and Envy.

Tentatively, so tentatively, Staci closes the gap between them. He approaches from Jacob's side, making sure he's seen, before he melts into the side of his body. Tucks his face into the crook of his neck, fingertips touching the lower etchings of the T and E in MONSTER. Hand above Jacob's heart.

It thuds against his palm, erratic like a caged animal's.

Up this close, he can smell fresh blood. His fingers itch to find the culprit and close it himself. Find where his own lifeblood leaks out of Jacob and press his mouth there until it's all better again.

“I want us to go Home,” Jacob says, his voice low and scrapped out. Head bowed forward, auburn hair falling down into his eyes. There are lips on his throat and he shudders against them. Cranes his neck to the side and moans quietly when Staci, emboldened, draws in even closer and starts to rub his cheeks against Jacob's beard.

“Then let's go,” Staci whispers. His words tingle against Jacob's Adam's apple. “Will you rest if we leave? If we go...Home?”

He turns as quickly as he's able, sitting on the lip of the windowsill and drawing Staci in between his spread thighs. Their bodies fit together, Jacob's arms around Staci's waist, Staci's curled between them with fistfuls of Jacob's shirt.

Words trapped between their bodies as Jacob says, “I'll do anything if we can just _go_.”

-

Staci's the one to tell Joseph.

“Come in.”

It's hot in Joseph's little house just behind the church. Two windows but neither opened, and the ceiling fan above chops slowly, uselessly, through the air. Burning through electricity more than it's circulating air.

He finds Joseph at a small but tidy oak desk in the corner near the bathroom door, scribbling away in a beat up leather journal. From over his shoulder, Staci can barely read his tight, slanted scrawl, detailing out a future sermon.

He doesn't look up as Staci enters but he can feel Joseph's attention evenly split between his writings and Staci's presence. After an awkward moment of silence, Staci's just opened his mouth when Joseph speaks first.

“Come to tell me he's ready to go?” Joseph asks. He punctuates a sentence with a particularly forceful flourish and turns half of his body to look at Staci. He's shirtless, trademark yellow glasses on even in the darkness of his room. A light sheen of sweat glimmers on his collarbones, the scarred definition of his abdominal muscles. “Not surprised he didn't come himself, though I am disappointed.”

“The Bliss, the Wolf's Den, uh...all of it together's kind of messed with his head. His first instinct was for you but I think now what he needs is control.” Staci watches Joseph watch him lick his lips. Carefully looks over Joseph's shoulders instead of into his eyes. The pull to the Father is strong, but the pull to Jacob is stronger. Staci has to be aware of the signals he's sending and receiving, unintentional and intentional alike. “He's climbing at the walls, and I think—”

There's a hand beneath his chin, urging it up, encouraging eye contact. Black with blue rings in the low, low light behind sulfur yellow lenses. “I am only trying to help him,” Joseph says. “Would you keep an eye on him for me? Jacob has a tendency to self-destruct, to destroy, as you well know.”

Only too well does Staci know that fact. Wordlessly he nods, eyes on the faint scar in Joseph's hairline.

Joseph pulls his chin down and forward. His forehead is warm, damp against Staci's own. The smell of him is clean and woodsy as always. This close up it's heady, makes Staci a little dizzy with it. It's a feat all its own to maintain his equilibrium without reaching out for stability. “Be a good boy and come back soon,” Joseph breathes.

A shiver, impossible to hide from this close. His body feels like it's on fire in this tiny sauna of a room, Joseph putting out so much heat before him. “I'll bring him back, I promise.”

“Not just him, Staci, but you, too. Watch that he does not self-destruct but also that he doesn't destroy you, too. He's gotten you to a place where God's words can finally resonate within you.” His hand slowly crawls from Staci's throat to his jawline. His fingertips are feather light on the lobe of Staci's ear. His breath warm, sweet and minty, just inches up and to the side of Staci's mouth.

Close enough his lips catch on Staci's skin when he adds, “Be there for him, love him, but be mindful for Jacob is but a Man. Understand?”

Joseph doesn't wait for him to stutter out an answer, to trip and stumble over how perplexed Staci is by Joseph's vicinity, the breathy hush of his words. He presses his lips against Staci's cheek, just shy of his mouth, in benediction. “Safe journeys, my Child.”

-

Staci returns to Jacob's room with a set of truck keys jingling in his shaking palm.

“He'd like us back soon,” he tells Jacob, voice soft like they're in the church hall and not their temporary hospital suite. The keys clink together as he uncurls his hand from around them and drops them into Jacob's extended hand. The look Jacob's giving him makes his stomach knot up, but he did nothing wrong. Nothing.

Even if he doesn't know what the Fuck that was. Wants more of it even as he wants to scurry away and tuck himself bodily behind Jacob.

“Can we go?” he asks, unintentionally curt. He bites at his nails and offers Jacob a weak smile.

Jacob studies him critically for a moment more before closing his fist around the keys. He returns Staci's smile, just as watery and loose. “Yeah, we can go.”

-

Just being in the Mountains again makes breathing so much easier. The higher altitude and the crisp, cold air. His body doesn't ache so much up here. The obsessive need to map things out, know and own his surroundings so he's prepared, is lesser here because it's all so familiar. He could walk St. Francis's halls blindfolded and deaf and still find his way cleanly and efficiently.

Muscles unlocking because he feels Safe again.

His men are around, his things are in their proper places. His quarters, clean and simple—no more white, no more Bliss.

His Man, with no one's hands on his body but Jacob's own.

It's not that he's not grateful to Joseph, that he doesn't love him—because he does. Madly, desperately. Joseph is the reason Jacob still has any _worth_ to speak of, any purpose. Without Joseph he'd probably be dead, or close enough. An empty shell of himself, used up and discarded by the military, by life. Shambling through the rest of his days until the blessed end.

But Joseph is... _complicated_. Joseph is The Father, and while the Father is also Joseph—the Father will always eclipse whatever's left of Jacob's middle brother. It's exhausting, having to deal with that all of the time.

Jacob doesn't feel the overwhelming pull to serve, to please, that John did, and sometimes he's envious of the fact that John felt Joseph's message as strongly as he did. Devoted, utterly and completely, to Joseph and the Father both.

Other times, he quietly blames that devotion for John's death.

-

One of the first things Jacob does upon returning to his Compound is order the Wolf's Den blown to smithereens.

Anything useful inside of it's long since been removed. No more Whitetails frolicking in its halls. No rations or weapons or milk crates of vinyl. Not bloodstains on the floor from those that Staci killed. The little Cheeseburger kiddie pool is even gone.

Still, it's cathartic as fuck when his men detonate it. Reduce it to a useless, smoldering heap of rubble in the mountainside.

Jacob can feel the rumbling of its destruction from his balcony. Can feel something inside him unfurl just a little at having it wiped off the face of the Earth.

The map of their caches laying across his desk, Staci pointing out white star after white star and resolutely _not_ making fun of him for his poor eyesight doesn't hurt, either.

-

Faith doesn't send word when she comes to visit a week or so after they've returned from Joseph's, not that she ever does.

One minute in the Henbane, the next in his Compound's courtyard.

His men allow her entry with mystified expressions on their faces like they always do, jaws slack as they watch white lace swish at her thighs.

“Sir, your sister is here,” crackles his walkie.

Jacob looks over at it from his seat at his desk and frowns. She's not his _sister_ , but he likes her better than the last Faith, and the one before that. She holds her own and keeps up well. Runs her region efficiently and effectively.

Hell, she caught and _broke_ the Deputy that killed John. That alone earns her her keep.

He could do without the giggling and twirling, though.

Still, her presence is seldom good, and having her around this soon after his misadventure down Bliss Boulevard has his fist curling and his heartbeat ratcheting up a notch.

“Go ahead and send her up,” he responds. Looks up and over to the bathroom door like he can see through it, see Staci preparing for the shower they were planning on taking together. Or, well, the shower Jacob was planning to crash.

He sighs, leaning back in his chair. Rubs his good hand over his face.

Another time, then.

Since returning from Joseph's, in the aftermath of everything they've been through together Staci has been bolder. Quicker to toe the line between them. Testing the waters.

Jacob would be lying if he said it didn't turn him on, watching Staci Pratt build himself back up again into something harder, stronger. Not quite his equal, but complimentary all the same. Fitting against all of Jacob's jagged edges, softening some of his too sharp ones.

He'd be lying if he said he wasn't filled with Pride when he overhears his men talking in hushed whispers about Staci's toppling of two Resistance kingpins. Even the ones who used to give Staci a hard time look at him with a new respect.

Especially after Staci nearly killed the first idiot who groped at him like Before. Solid punch straight to the guy's nose, the _crunch_ of damaged cartilage and the unnatural squelch of it shifting on his face, and then on him like an animal, wailing away until three of Jacob's men pulled him off and managed to keep him down.

He's contemplating radioing back to tell Faith to fuck off for an hour or so when the woman herself proceeds through his door. The lack of knocking is fucking irritating, but at least she's not twirling or giggling.

She considers him blandly for a moment as she's closing the door behind her, then her face splits into a smile as she crosses the distance between them. Perches on the corner of his desk like she's a cat, not paying any mind to the papers beneath her. Her legs are long, smooth and clean in the sunshine pouring in from the balcony door—no mud on them, not even her feet, and while it hadn't rained recently, he knows his courtyard is typically torn up by booted feet and the comings and goings of supply vehicles.

“Oh, Brother, look at your _face_ ,” she coos. Her hands are cold against his jaw, and he turns away with a roll of his eyes. Wrinkles his nose at the smell of Bliss on them, sickly sweet. “I'm sorry I couldn't come sooner. I had some... _things_ to take care of. Father assured me you were well enough for me to set my plans into motion. But then I came as soon as I could!”

Jacob snorts. “Good thing I didn't need any aid, I'd be dead if I'd had to rely on you.”

Daintily she crosses his legs at the knees and leans into his space. “I heard you didn't need rescuing. Had yourself a built in helper.” Thin, pale fingers dance up the center of his chest. She giggles as he pushes her hand away before she reaches his still tender carving, hazel eyes sparkling with mirth. “Your little Deputy, huh? Who'd'a thought.”

“Who'd'a thought,” Jacob echoes. Despite himself he's smirking, caught in her infectious energy.

The water cuts on and Faith leans back towards it, arms behind her to hold her weight as she dips backward to theatrically eyeball the bathroom door. Looks back at him, grin lecherous and eyes twinkling.

God, it makes him ache for John.

“Am I interrupting,” a _pop! o_ n the p, “something, Jakey?” Legs extended now, swinging beside him. “Don't see a cot in here anymore for him—guess you're taking that Vow of Celibacy pretty serious, huh?”

“Something like that.” The words a rumbling laugh in his throat, eyes rolling again. “Did you come here for any particular reason or just to bust my balls?”

She makes a _tsk_ sound and hops off his desk. Dances her fingers along the back of his shoulders as she walks around him. “Wanted to know if you were interested in helping me take back Fall's End. For John.” Quieter with his name in her mouth, the bright light in her eyes temporarily dulled. The two youngest with the most to prove, she had been almost as close to John as she is to Joseph. “We'd have the entire County back, then.”

He's nodding before she's even finished speaking. Sitting up in his seat and angling his body to watch her as she walks. “Tell me when and how many men, and I'll be there.”

“Good, good.” Unsurprised but still heartened by his ready agreement. Devoted to their lost Brother even in death, just like herself. “Figure I'd bring along my newest Angel and give her her wings.”

Thinking of John and then thinking of the Junior Deputy, Jacob clenches his jaw and looks away. “I get the whole broken spirit aspect of things, but I really wish you had just fuckin' killed her. I don't – I don't know how you keep her around after John.”

She stops for just a second before continuing her aimless circuit of his quarters. Fingers spread wide as she turns and passes him, arm out like a plane. The scent of Bliss follows her as she goes, making her almost shimmer in the sunlight. “I like to think John would be amused. Her servitude is her penance to God for taking him away from us. Her Atonement.”

Jacob still would've preferred smashing her face into the ground, or the red red beam of his rifle between her eyes. Blood for blood. But there's an appeal to keeping her around, especially when he thinks about John busting a fucking gut over it.

Meeting John at the Gates later and the first thing that little asshole does is throw his arms out and crow, “ _Yes._ ”

“I guess I can see it,” he concedes.

The water cuts off. Short shower, military quick. Jacob wonders, amused, if he was expecting company and was disappointed in its absence.

“I'm gonna need you to vacate soon, Faith.” He meets her grin with one of own. “Unless you want a show.”

She hops back on his desk, lightning quick. Gives a delighted, musical laugh before sobering a touch. “I also have a message from a little birdie of mine. _Promised_ I'd hand deliver the message after you went and got yourself almost dead.” She flips her hair and rolls her eyes dramatically. Jacob's reminded of a girl he knew in juvenile detention, a firestarter named Lilly who flipped her hair and popped her gum obsessively, in place of the matches and lighter the State had taken from her. “Planning a little bonfire before the sacking of Fall's End. She wanted to know if you planned on attending.” She walks her fingers back up his chest. Completes their march and stands her index and middle fingers on the top of his shoulder.

“Faith—”

“I told her you'd maybe be there but not to get her hopes up. That another little birdie's got you singing these days. Told her I'm pretty sure it's serious. Is it, Jakey? _Serious_?”

“It's—”

“You're gonna have to come around and clip my little birdie's wings, Jake. Got her singin' and now she won't shut up. Hate to give her to the cat or something. Lose her down one of these abandoned mining shafts.”

“It's...complicated.” He rolls the word around in his mouth, decides he doesn't like the taste of it. Not sure what else to say, though. Does he tell her how decidedly serious it is? Bitemarks and rescues and dead kingpins. Staci stronger and more devoted than Jacob would ever have give him credit for.

Does he own up to it?

He doesn't.

“It's complicated, Faith. I'll think about it. Now seriously, unless you wanna show I suggest you twirl on out of here, girlie.”

She pouts as she rises, but it's all good natured. “I'll be in touch about Fall's End. And Jake? I suggest you uncomplicate things—no little birdie wants to be strung along.”

-

_It's complicated, Faith._

Staci stares at the towel in his grip and wills it to somehow mutate into something more useful, something that'll clarify what _complicated_ means.

As far as he knew, things were decidedly very un-fucking-complicated.

He could just be overreacting. Jacob is many things and unfortunately forthright is _not_ one of them. Staci doesn't expect him to shout about them from the top of the Compound, but not even owning up to it in private with Faith?

_It's complicated, Faith._

Always saying what he half-means, never saying the entire truth. Bread crumb trails of what Jacob Seed is feeling that Staci obsesses over. Incomplete truths that never quite fit together.

It's uncomplicated enough for Jacob to be jealous of Joseph. It's uncomplicated enough for bitemarks and Staci murdering four people to safeguard Jacob's life.

Apparently too complicated for a simple answer, or even a convoluted one. There's power in a name they say, but what happens when there isn't one?

Staci's not deluded enough to think of them as boyfriends, to think of them on even ground. Even with their dynamic in flux like it is, they'll never be equals—Jacob always one rung above him.

He would've even taken Jacob calling him His, just so long as he called him anything.

Always Jacob's, never Staci's.

It's a stupid fucking thing to get upset over, out of all of the messed up shit he's had to endure in the Whitetails.

_You've already sucked the taste of her off him once, Pratt._

His cheeks burn and he wishes he'd stayed in the shower, ignorant beneath the spray. Un-fucking-complicated, un-fucking-burdened. Maybe they would have finished on the same time schedule and Jacob would be waltzing into the bathroom right about now, giant and scarred and naked.

 _Staci's_ , however quiet the proclamation.

He decides it's not worth getting upset over. Tells himself he's not getting upset over it, even while his hands shake as he towels himself off. He hadn't brought a change of clothes with him into the bathroom— _presumptive, are we, Peaches—_ and he needs to be dry before the _show_.

Jacob's on his back in the bed when Staci emerges. Giant and scarred and naked, save his dog tags. He practically purrs as Staci enters the room, his good hand hidden beneath the blanket, steadily tugging.

“Was wondering if you'd taken to primping in there. Worried I'd started too early and would have to finish myself.” Jacob snorts and throws back the covers. Winks lewdly at Staci as he stretches, the long scored lines of his toned body reflecting like scales in the light. Silvery and pink and livid salmon red—atrophic dips and hypertrophic ridges all along the length of him.

He's beautiful, in a complicated way. Nice teeth and nicer body but riddled in scars and weighed down by baggage, by hard living and harder actions.

Wordlessly Staci drops his towel and climbs astride him, hands braced on his chest above the O and the T of his most livid recent scar. Fingers of his left hand splayed, the sown, healing bullet wound in Jacob's shoulder framed between them. The beaded chain of his dog tags unevenly bisects his etching.

Jacob cants his hips up, nudges the wet tip of his dick against the underside of Staci's thigh. “Cat got your tongue, Peaches?” He casts his bad arm out into the mess of sheets around them and paws for a moment before finding his prize. Shiny little bottle of half empty lubricant, the same bottle from their first time in this bed.

Staci grabs it and drizzles some into his right hand. Works it around until his skin is nice and wet with it, and reaches behind himself. He moans quietly as his fingers breach his body, shifts higher up on Jacob's lap for a better angle.

“C'mon, Staci, let me hear you fuck your own fingers. Quieter than a church mouse today, afraid someone's gonna hear?” he taunts, bucking his hips again. With his good hand he collects Staci's hardening dick and his own and begins to pull at them together, swiping the heel of his hand over the head of Staci's dick as he goes. “Whole Compound practically knows how good you sit on my dick.”

Deciding he's prepared enough after a few long moments of pushing and scissoring, Staci retracts his fingers and urges Jacob's hand away from their groins. The chill of the lubricant on his dick makes Jacob's breath hitch, and he groans loudly as Staci fucks his fist up and down his shaft to spread it around.

Jacob's inside to the hilt before he even realizes it, Staci impaling himself with a shaky, punched out exhale and his face screwed tight in concentration.

“There y'fuckin' go, Peaches. So tight for me, huh? Say it, Staci.”

The cast itches against Staci's bare hip as he rocks forward and backward, weight partially braced on his palms on Jacob's chest. He sinks down particularly hard and spreads his legs wider, relishing in the burn licking its way from his thighs up through his abdomen as Jacob fucks into him, impossibly deep.

“So,” a thrust, “fucking,” another, his feet braced on the mattress, “ _quiet_ ,” Staci, stuttering out a moan, slippery palms sliding and catching on the angry raised skin of the MONSTER, on the beaded chain of Jacob's dog tags, “Peaches.”

Staci drops his head and sinks down to meet Jacob's thrusts, teeth sunk into his lower lip. Quiet little whines escaping anyway, sounding in his throat.

Jacob fists his good hand into Staci's hair, pulls his head back so he can see Staci's face. Watches his eyelids flutter as he pushes in fast, deep. “Say it, Pratt, fuckin' say it, be a good boy.”

Staci opens his eyes and looks at the ceiling, hips gyrating faster. “Yours,” he whispers.

Uncomplicated, easy. Just one word.

Unfortunately the only word, but still less complicated than “complicated.”

“Yours,” he says again miserably. He lifts his lower half until Jacob's nearly out of his body and then sinks back down. Shudders with how full he feels, the roiling ache of Jacob pistoning in and out of his body. Concentrates on it and not the burn in his cheeks, hopes Jacob attributes it to exertion.

Pulled down by his hair, their mouths meet forcefully. Slipping away from their kiss after a hard thrust has Staci keening, trying to drop his body even lower to take him in deeper.

“So good, fuuuck, so good.” Words against Staci's sweaty forehead, his temple. The rasp of Jacob's beard against his cheekbones, against his forehead, as Jacob throws his head back and arches his back for leverage. “No one takes it like you. Mine, God, just fucking mine.”

Staci's nails catch on the MONSTER again, ripping loose some of the connecting scab tissue. His fingertips are damp with blood but its scent only drives him faster, harder. The smell of sex and blood overpowering the scent of Staci's soap, of the lingering Bliss in the air.

It burns, the air on his cuts. His own sweat and the drag of Staci's fingers over raw, sensitive tissue. God it feels so good.

“Mine,” Jacob says again, panting with it.

“Mine,” Staci repeats. He opens his eyes as he presses their sweaty foreheads together. “Mine, huh, Jacob? No one'll fuck you like I do.” Heartened by the jagged, pained groan ripped from Jacob's chest, Staci presses down hard on the bleeding wound before him. Smears Jacob's blood all around. “Mine, mine, mine.”

Decidedly uncomplicated.

“Yours, huh? That right?”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah—fuck, give it to me, God—mine, Jacob. I'll fucking kill anyone who touches you.”

“That a threat?” Jacob's shark grin, teeth bared as he hurtles towards orgasms.

“Mm, more a promise.” Moans clawing their way out of him as he sinks down hard once, twice, and shudders through his orgasm. Vision white, white, white, hot like the fire in his gut. Mouth opened and jaw locked as he cries through it, hips still undulating as he paints Jacob's freckled, scarred stomach.

Up and on his back in a flash, disoriented by the force of his orgasm. He lets Jacob manipulate him like a doll as he continues chasing his own orgasm, one of Staci's quivering, sweaty legs around his waist, and the other dangling over his shoulder. Heel bouncing on his shoulderblade as Jacob drives into him.

“Yours,” Jacob agrees. Leans down to kiss quivering lips and clamp his teeth hard into them. “Gonna—fuck—uncomplicate it, huh? Hurt your feelings overhearing me? So sorry, baby. You can tell her I'm yours at the bonfire, God. Don't even remember her fucking name.”

It's true. She was beautiful and so wet for him, but all fucking wrong. Eyes big and blue, hair long and blonde. Wrong wrong wrong wrong.

“Yours, Staci. Call Faith back in if you want, show her how bad I wrecked you before I tell her, huh? Show her that pretty little destroyed hole of yours.” The pleasure singing up his spine has him baring his teeth against Staci's forehead. Hips slamming home choppy and irregular until he comes with a grunt. Body shaking as he holds himself above Staci, dog tags clinking softly together.

When he's finished, he slips his softening dick out only to plug his fingers inside. Grins as Staci whines when he begins petting at his prostate. His fingers push in as deep as they'll go, and as Jacob watches, bewitched, he wishes he were younger so he could go again faster.

Leave Staci dripping with it.

“That what that was all about? I hurt your feelings?” Jacob snorts.

“Jacob,” Staci hisses, still writing on Jacob's long fingers. Hiccuping around sobs and moans.

“Wanna carve it in me? You do me and I'll do you. Only way you're getting rid of me is six feet under, Peaches, go ahead. How's that for un-fucking-complicated?”


	10. Chapter 10

The sacking of Fall's End is Faith's brainchild, her own little homage to John. Jacob offers her his council, his men, his weapons, but stays back, content to be support instead of lead. It's a fundamental change in position for him, not having to carry the entire burden of both the defense and offense of Eden's Gate, but he quietly endures the uncomfortable itch of it in favor of seeing where Faith will take this.

Jacob's wholly expecting to have to swoop in and salvage the plan, like he had had to do with John on several occasions. John's whole problem was that he never thought before he acted. He was always _now now now,_ revving his engines to go as fast as possible, and often found himself in freefall when the future caught up with him—a car with no brakes hurtling towards a cliff.

He had a lot to prove, a lot of _Pride_ getting in his way. He wanted the recognition he so desperately craved, and to have people proud of him, _Joseph—_ any father figure, but especially his _Father_ figure—proud of him, fiendish for it.

He both desired help, a Witness, and resented it as a Weakness.

Had he called Jacob for aid when the Junior Deputy had him fleeing in the sky, John would probably still be alive.

At the beginning during their meetings, she sits on his desk and kicks her legs as he goes over logistics, a map of Fall's End spread out before them. She giggles at his questions and gives him cryptic, poetic nonsense until he's clenching his teeth and ready to throttle her.

It's infuriating, it's _disrespectful_ , but he goes along with it until he can't any longer.

She kicks her legs one time too many one night two weeks in, and Jacob, enraged by her aloofness, at how _John_ her actions are, seizes her by her ankle and squeezes. Her thighs squeak against the tabletop as he yanks her forward into his space. Map crinkling beneath her, ripping at the edge.

Hazel eyes wide and incredulous on his hand, pink lips lightly parted. Free leg braced against the lip of the desk, toes curled in search of leverage.

“Jacob,” she gasps. She attempts to tug her foot back and finds herself locked in his bear trap of a grip. The few nails that remain healthy and fully intact on his fingers dig into the meat of her ankle, bright sharp lines of discomfort against the pulsing thud of pressure braceleting her flesh.

“If you're not going to take this seriously, I'll just sack the fucking place myself.” In the dim light he studies her, watches her again try to break his hold. There's a furrow between her brows and a harsh line where her beatific smile had been moments earlier. She looks younger here than Jacob's ever recalled, a little girl playing at soldier befuddled when she doesn't hit her mark, and it hits him all at once how young she actually is.

Younger than John, younger than even Staci. Jacob through with several years of military service before she even entered the world kicking and screaming.

She's run the Henbane efficiently, but how hard can it be to properly control a bunch of Blissed out lunatics? She's in charge of the Path, too, for Christ's sake, and that's a glorified fucking amusement park to the Father.

He should've taken this whole endeavor over as soon as she brought it up. It's a mistake he'll swiftly correct.

“I know you want to do this for John, I get it, Faith, but I'm not going to get my men killed because you think this is all a fucking _game_ ,” he spits. His men are good soldiers, not Faith's vapid Angels or John's scarred canon fodder, and while they know what they've signed up for, Jacob doesn't intend for their deaths to be in vain. To be pawns in some child's board game.

She attempts to free herself again and he growls, yanking her forward until she's precariously balanced on the lip of the desk. The toes of her free foot are tiptoed on the ground to keep her from falling.

The bones of her ankle feel fragile against his palm, beneath his fingers. When she begins to pull her leg another time he clamps down until she hisses in pain and aborts the motion. “Why don't you just go back to your fucking Angels and I'll call you when it's done?”

“Unhand me.” He's never heard her voice like that, no musical lilt, no giggle. All edge, ready to cut should he proceed any further. Deeper, flatter than her usual singsong. The hissing whisper of a rattlesnake.

It almost makes him reconsider his next words, but Jacob's never once backed down from a fight in his life.

Never with Old Man's Seed whiskey rage, not even with that old leather belt thrust in his face, damp with Jacob's own sweat and blood. Jacob had hocked the blood in his mouth at him and got in as many solid punches as he could before his Father's greater bulk incapacitated him as readily as his weathered hands around Jacob's throat.

Never in Juvie, with a down right _scary_ motherfucker that made Jacob's barn arson look like child's play. That kid had had _no_ feeling in him whatsoever, affect totally flat, and had already stabbed another teen before setting his sights on Jacob. Jacob had sat in solitary afterward, bloody and sore but _victorious_ , hand sown up after the little bastard had stabbed him clean through the palm with a homemade shiv. His own little stigmata, and Jacob deliriously ached in time with the pulsing in his hand, ached to share it with Joseph, wherever the state of Georgia had taken him.

Never in his Service, not overseas in Iraq and certainly not at home—drunk Flyboys crashing their Fleet Week parties, insulting their brotherhood, insulting Jacob's _Family._ Three of them against two, Jacob and Miller, and he had fought and fought until Miller was begging him to stop. _Jake, you won, c'mon, Jake! We're gonna get reprimands, we have to go – stop, you're going to kill him!_

He pulls again, ever the elder brother. _Stop hitting yourself, stop hitting yourself!_ “What if I don't?”

The kick to the chest, heel on the center of his mostly healed brand, toes against his Adam's Apple, is almost as surprising as finding himself flat on his back, blinking up at the ceiling.

Jacob windmills as his chair crashes to the ground, Faith's ankle released. The impact with the floor is jarring, his head knocking against the ground and his neck snapping back into the top rung of his chair. Colors blink in his vision, but even then he's already beginning to rise when there's pressure applied to his throat.

Faith's weight isn't great, maybe one hundred and fifteen pounds sopping wet, but any weight brought down on a person's trachea is going to feel like a ton. The colors burst into stars as his airway is blocked off.

“Then this'll happen,” Faith replies, and her voice is still just as flat. A shaking, rattling emptiness Jacob's never seen in her before. All emotion burnt away by the cold fire in her hazel eyes.

He lets her have her victory for a moment longer before he brings his casted arm up behind her knee to hook under her and sweep her down. Her weight makes his arm scream with pain to bear, but it's well worth it to watch the surprise blossom in her eyes as her weight's buckling, as the floor rushes up to meet her.

Jacob rolls out and away from his chair and onto her before she's fully hit the ground. Breathing heavily above her face, his exhales parting strawberry blonde hair as he straddles her midsection and curls in on himself to crush his cast against her throat.

He hates the God damn thing, wants it removed _yesterday_ , but it's got its uses.

“ _This_ looks to be just as useful as your half-assed plan to kick a hornet's nest. You don't _think_ , Faith, just like John, and it got him fucking killed.” She struggles beneath his weight, attempting to free her arms from where they're pinned beneath his knees. The wail of pain she gives when he crushes his knees down into the tops of her hands rings his ears like a bell, makes his vision shake with the force of it.

Distantly, Jacob can hear the distressed calls of his men. No alarm yet without first assessing the situation, but with every passing second he can hear more and more of his people preparing to defend their home.

“You are _not_ my blood, Faith.” The flash of hurt in her eyes has him simultaneously licking his lips and feeling guilty. “But so help me you're the closest any God has ever come to giving me a Sister, and I am _not_ burying anymore of my Family any time soon.”

Eyes wide, searching his face. Tears of hurt pooling in the bottom of her eyes turning into tears of awe. Shimmering like the Bliss. “Jac—”

“Have I made myself fucking clear? Take this seriously – _show_ me you take this seriously - or go back home to your dolls, Faith.”

The door bursts open and men flood the room, with Staci at the helm. There's mud on his boots and blood on his shirt, both gleaming wetly in the light. His chest heaves as he frantically searches the room, bloodied machete in hand—must've come from the Training courses, Jacob's little Monster having taken his new taste for blood and applied it on the homefront.

The sight before him jars Staci, uncertainty clouding his features, but he steps forward all the same, lips parted around a silent _Jacob?_ Eyes hard, shoulders back, like he'd spring forth to kill Faith if only Jacob would give the order.

Fuck, Jacob's a little dizzy with it. Pockets that away for later.

“Hm?” Jacob asks, applying a little more pressure with his knees. As soon as he does he backs off, instead shifting them off of her arms and to the floor, bracketing her body. Her hands shake as they grip the sides of his thighs, fingertips biting into the meat of him. “What's it going to be, Faith?”

“ _Yes_ ,” she sobs. Head nodding, blonde hair haloing around her. A tear escapes and Jacob smooths it away. “Let me show you, Jacob – let me show you, _Brother_. I can do this, I _want_ to do this. For John.”

-

After that, Faith is different.

No more parading around his Compound, giggling and singing and bewitching his men until he has to call her from his balcony, quietly seething. No more sitting on the corner of his desk and flippantly messing with his things while he goes over attack strategies.

Her vapid, pixie air is dispelled, left back in the Henbane, its proper theater.

The new Faith sits properly in a chair beside Jacob and answers with concise, thought out ideas. The new Faith draws less focus to her pretty white dress, her sweet scent and her musical laugh, and draws it all in and onto her bloodstained teeth and the cold fury in her eyes.

She's good here in his office, better than John ever was at this kind of stuff. Her ideas are wholly different from Jacob's, coming from angles he wouldn't even have thought of. Most of them would never work, but the fact that she not only comes up with them but figures out theoretical ways to _support_ them has Jacob humming with Pride.

He takes bits and pieces from each of her suggestions and weaves them together with his own until after a month and a half of planning and preparation, they're on the eve of retaking some of what's been lost.

-

It's been ages since Staci has seen a fire burn quite that high, quite that _viciously,_ but if the Family knew how to do anything, they knew how to celebrate with their mouths frothing with religious conviction.

They're somewhere deep in the Henbane, just downwind from a Bliss field. There's dozens of people, Jacob's men and Faith's and those of John's that had managed to escape the Junior Deputy, singing and passing around contraband homemade Bliss-infused wine and spears of roasted bison.

It's seated in a pit, a ditch, really, lined with large rocks to keep it somewhat contained. The fire itself has to be at least twenty feet tall, its flames shooting high, high, high into the dark navy of the night sky. Dancing, flickering orange against the spray of silvery white stars. Sweet smelling gray smoke, burning wood lightly powdered with Bliss, pulled up into the dark as a veil for the Dippers, for Cassiopeia's familiar twinkle.

It crackles and hisses like a dragon, like an Old God, burning wood groaning and popping as it roars and resettles, breaking down into ash as the Family around it drinks and sings and prepares for the next day's battle.

The smoke and the wine make Staci's body tingle, his head pleasantly fuzzy. He hasn't been under the influence of anything but Jacob, but the Family, in six months, and the freedom from stress and responsibilities has his body loose and receptive.

Jacob allows them both one glass of wine and keeps them at least twenty feet from the flames at all times, but even with those precautions Jacob himself is effected. Color high in his cheeks beneath his fiery beard and his pockmark scars, the flames reflecting off glassy, icy blue eyes. Pupils huge and still expanding.

His hand—now finally, blessedly, free of its cast—is warm and heavy on the inner thigh of Staci's jeans as Staci sits between his legs in a Family truck bed. His lips warm and moist on Staci's jaw, his fluttering pulse.

“You having fun, Peaches? Tomorrow's gonna be a big day,” said softly, directly into Staci's ear. Jacob chuckles when Staci shudders hard, leaning into the warmth of the chest behind him. “Gonna show those Sinners what you can do, huh? Impress Faith's men, you've already impressed mine.”

Staci's gonna pop wood in the middle of a Family bonfire, from Jacob's low, honey drenched words alone, and he doesn't even fucking _care_.

Just across the way, he can see Joseph speaking with Faith, and his cheeks burn partly with embarrassment, partly with arousal, as he watches the Father repeatedly look from Faith and over to them. To the scene they're making just barely tucked away from the festivities, drenched in the glow of celebratory fire.

From this far away, Staci can't read his face, but his shoulders tense a little whenever he looks over towards them. Sways forward just a bit, effected by the Bliss like the rest of them. Sulfur yellow glasses reflecting the flames and shielding the Family from seeing just how glassy his own eyes are.

There's a rough hand on his jaw, pulling Staci's face over and back into Jacob's shoulder. Jacob's fatigue jacket smells like woodsmoke and gunpowder, its material soft with age beneath his cheek. “Whatcha lookin' at, huh? Share with the class.”

“Joseph's watching us,” Staci says breathlessly, laughing into Jacob's mouth. Kisses him hard and struggles a little to turn around to achieve a better angle. Jacob's tongue is wicked against his own, soft and wet and so warm as it caresses every available inch of Staci's mouth. He sucks on it until Jacob groans, makes Staci's entire face tingle with it as it resonates through their connected mouths.

Jacob breaks them apart for air, his chest heaving. He had been hesitant to get anywhere near Faith's Bliss-soaked fire or her Bliss-infused wine after his stay at Joseph's Compound, but the dosing here is just light enough to take the edge off. He's enjoying himself, surprisingly. Guard down and wriggly, excited Staci in his lap.

“Fuckin' let him watch. Close as he's gonna ever get to you himself, yeah?” Jacob purrs. Thinking back to Joseph's hands on Staci, anger blooms, burning in Jacob's chest, but it dissipates quickly with Staci laughing against Jacob's cheek. It's soft and genuine, smells like Bliss and plums, and while the anger disappears its heat remains, coiled tightly around Jacob's heart, his lungs, burning just as surely as the bonfire before them.

The depth of his feelings startles him, time and time again. How prey he's fallen to something as _weak_ as Love. Not that he'd admit it, give it a name, a Power, because he hasn't.

Somewhere within himself he's quietly afraid to give away any more of his carefully hoarded power and self control. But it's there, as surely as the laughter against his skin. A predator in the dark just waiting for its moment to strike, eyes the color of blood, the color of war, the color of Love.

And to make things even more bewildering, he's pretty sure it's _reciprocated_.

After all they've been through, after all Jacob's done—Staci is warm and pressed against him _willingly_. Staci had the opportunity to just incapacitate Eli and run for his life, but instead he _chose_ _Jacob_. Ran back into the belly of the beast for someone like him. Bloodied, cracked Jacob Seed, with his hair trigger icy anger and his trademarked cruelty. Stayed for the heart aches and Jacob's pointed words because somehow, someway, whatever shift Jacob had begun in their relationship two months ago on the floor of his quarters had landed them both in the deepest shit possible.

If Jacob had known this would be in store for them, he wouldn't even be able to be honest with himself enough to know if he would've pursued Staci earlier, _differently,_ softer or more voraciously, or just killed him like he had wanted to at the very beginning. Hand only stayed because Joseph had asked it, because Joseph thought young Deputy Pratt might be worth something after all.

The irony of it so, _so_ fucking funny.

“Thought that wasn't your thing.” Still quietly laughing, private and just for Jacob, jarring him out of his thoughts. Fingertips ghosting against the scars on Jacob's cheeks, so gently it feels like his deadened nerve endings roar back to life so long as he's touching them. So gently, too gently, its kindness and affection like a roar in the night.

 _Fuck fuck fuck_ , Jacob thinks, heart thudding, eyelids fluttering. Nuzzling into Staci's touch all the same. He blames it all on the Bliss even as he chuckles into Staci's palm. Makes eye contact and kisses the base of Staci's middle finger, nips his teeth at it. “Would it make you happy? I'd consider it if it did.”

The question's out of him and in the air between them before his brain translates what his mouth is about to say. Jacob's heart seizes as he sinks his teeth into his lower lip, and he searches Staci's face for any hint of a similar freak out. He looks for doubt, for surprise, for any mirroring trepidation concerning the fucking _landmine_ his dumbass mouth just spoke into existence.

 _Fucking Bliss_ , giving away more than he intended. Broadcasting his newest weakness.

It's also strangely, terrifyingly freeing.

 _Would it make you happy?_ Jacob would do a lot of things to have that laugh against his skin. To safeguard it, to preserve it. He'd kill for it willingly, happily, a fucking bloodied smile on his face.

Staci makes a wounded sound, like one of Jacob's caught wolves. It's quiet but agonized, and Jacob fervently wishes they hadn't come to this God damn bonfire so they could have this conversation somewhere removed. Somewhere with Jacob's control still in check. Somewhere he can lay Staci down and show him his feelings with his body, his mouth. Somewhere he can soothe that sound away, replace it with breathy, helpless moans.

There's movement in his lap, and for one soul-crushing moment Jacob thinks Staci's trying to extract himself. He digs his fingers into Staci's hip, anchoring him, but Staci just continues to shimmy and shift until he's fully facing Jacob, blocking out the bonfire and Joseph and everyone fucking else.

All Jacob can see is Staci.

“Jacob,” Staci whispers. Softly he presses their foreheads together, bumps his nose to Jacob's. He swallows the soft exhale Jacob gives and shifts even closer, like he wants inside. Jacob would let him, God he'd let him rip out organs and bones just to make himself comfortable. To make it so he'd never leave. “I just want you. No one else, not even Joseph. Not even the Father. _You_.”

It's foolish, it's _stupid,_ Staci shouldn't want a man like Jacob, a man that's done the things Jacob has—but he does. He wakes in the morning to Jacob's freckled, scarred skin against his and the first thing he feels is affection.

He does not let himself dwell on his time with Jacob Before things began developing between them. Out of sight, out of mind. He focuses on the here and the now, and here and now Jacob is minutely trembling against him. He looks younger than Staci's seen him, unsure and _weakened_ and enamored all the same. Bloody heart in his hands, offered out to Staci. Only for Staci.

Sheriff Whitehorse would call him deluded, would say that he's bonded to a psychopath in order to survive. Take him by his shoulders and shake him until his brain rattled in his skull. Remind him of the battered wives he's helped over the years, the ones he's attended funerals for.

Staci would argue they're Different, Stronger, as he cradles Jacob's wounded heart against his chest. That Staci's gone through Hell and back with this man and somehow ended up taming him, at least as much as Jacob Seed could be tamed.

It doesn't make him any less deluded, not really. From behind his cracked, red-tinted glasses, all of the red flags around them are just that: flags.

But this is the bed he's helped to make and he's going to make the most of it.

He's going to make a _Home_ of it.

“I think—” Jacob's throat clicks with the emotions and words finally clawing their way free. He lets them rise from his gut and still they shred his throat, leave him sounding wrecked and fucked out. “I think I—”

“Having fun, boys?” Their moment popped like a bubble. The rushing in of external sound is jarring—the crackling of the fire, the singing drifting out into the night. It had all faded away, tuned out by the thunderous beating of Jacob's heart.

Jacob looks up and makes a valiant attempt to not snarl at Joseph. Mostly succeeds. His lips contort into the bastard of a smile, upper lip quivering in a half snarl. Too much of his teeth bared. “Was,” he mumbles, quiet enough that Joseph doesn't entirely hear.

Staci hides his smirk by tucking his face into Jacob's throat.

If Joseph's aware of the discomfort he's wrought, he doesn't show it. The expression on his illuminated face is passive yet fond, indulgent. The Father tending to his flock. He leans against the side of the truck, hip cocked and his legs crossed at the ankle, and says, “Faith was just telling me about your plans for Fall's End. Have you put any thought into liberating the rest of Holland Valley?”

“It's crossed my mind,” Jacob answers. He struggles to get each word out, carefully enunciating each and every one so he doesn't say _go the fuck away, Joe_. Joseph's the only one Jacob has ever bitten his tongue for, but if he bites it any harder his teeth might just slice clean through. “Makes the most sense to take back Fall's End first and then go from there.”

“Would you and Faith split the territory evenly?” Joseph ask. Like the division would even be up to them, like Joseph's say so isn't the be all, end all of everything that goes on in Hope County. Always speaking of choices and options when the only true route is just to follow in Joseph's wake and play the part you're given.

Calmly he eyes Staci, taking in the visage of his brother's former prisoner—current prisoner? Are chains still chains if Bliss flowers are woven through their links?—snuggled in so tightly. Cozy, relaxed. Free of the tension that hung around him like a storm cloud the entire time Jacob had been healing at Joseph's Compound.

While Jacob had slept and healed, Joseph had overseen the care and comfort of his brother's ward. He had kept a close eye on him, wondering if his brother's treatment had broken young Staci Pratt or had simply realigned him. Shifted his insides just enough so he could receive the Word of God.

A broken bone that heals stronger than it had been before.

He had been purposefully kind to Staci, kinder than Joseph suspected Jacob had ever been – had _yet_ to be. Offering food and books and soft, reassuring touches to keep him grounded, to remind him of how gentle and good things could be for Staci if he just finished surrendering. If he dropped the last bit of resistance in his soul.

Judging by the picture he and his brother make before him, curled up together in the firelight, Joseph surmises that Staci's submission is Total, Complete. And it doesn't look like Staci is the only one of the two to have given something up in the process.

Faith has even let him know that Staci has undertaken several new roles at Jacob's Compound, and isn't _that_ an interesting development. Trading in his clipboard for a machete, his Deputy's badge for a starburst cross.

Staci wouldn't be able to replace what they've lost, but...

Jacob watches as Joseph's head turns the slightest bit to the side, his eyes narrowing a little behind his glasses. “I guess it'd depend—”

“What about installing a...governor of sorts?” Before the words have even fully left his mouth, Joseph can see Jacob's back straightening and becoming rigid.

Clarity pushes back on the hugeness of his pupils, reigning in the Bliss just enough so Jacob can absorb the significance of what is brother is proposing. “Joseph,” Jacob says quietly, “are you implying what I think you are?”

Staci hadn't been listening fully, had simply been enjoying his muscles being so loose and Jacob being so warm, but the tension suddenly mounting in Jacob has him scrabbling to locate the danger. He separates from Jacob's chest and looks around quickly, but all he can see is Joseph. Passive smile, sulfur yellow glasses. A twinkle in his eyes like Bliss shimmering.

Dangerous all the same.

The severity of the air around them is messing with Staci's nerves, makes him itchy. When he shimmies away and climbs out of the truck, Jacob doesn't even try to stop him. Just watches him go with a calm detachment.

“I'm – I'm going to get food,” Staci says dumbly. He sways for a second under the Bliss in the air before he gets his body to cooperate fully. “Would you like something, Jacob?”

The cool veneer shifts out of Jacob's eyes long enough for him to turn to Staci and quietly say back, “I'm good, Peaches.” Then it's back, and Jacob's eyes are once more on his brother. His brother who seems to be up to something.

While Jacob's eyes aren't on him, Joseph's are. Staci shifts under his gaze, always too hot and piercing. “Would you...like something, Father?”

The question births a kind smile on Joseph's face, but even within its softness Staci can sense something hidden, lurking beneath. It was the right thing to do, though, Staci's sure of it. Had he not included the Father, something in his gut tells him he'd have regretted it. “No, my Child, but thank you very much for the offer.”

The Brothers Seed watch Staci Pratt go, walking quickly away from them but not fleeing as he surely wanted to. Uncertain of the scene unfolding between them but hesitant to show too much fear, especially after how far he's come within Jacob's rankings. Has to maintain his Pride and his Strength even in the face of whatever the fuck is developing between Jacob and Joseph.

He approaches the tables of food near the fire, homemade breads and Bliss wine and roasted bison spread out before him, as a small group of white Ford trucks pull up to the clearing. There's headlights and firelight on his face, bright and dim and hot and cold, when he looks over at the Brothers once more and offers a smile.

Jacob is sure it's meant for him only, but Joseph takes from it all the same. Entitled to it as the Father, what's Jacob's is also Joseph's.

“If you've trained him half as well as I think you have, Holland Valley could be his in time. Yours in name at first, but his later if he proves his usefulness to the Family.” Faith appears at Staci's side in a flourish, linking their arms and leading him up and down the spread of food. He watches them go, firelight on their backs, warm in strawberry blonde and chocolate waves.

Conflicting emotions rage inside Jacob. Pride at yet another person pointing out how Strong and capable Staci has become. Trepidation, because Jacob has learned that nothing comes without a price with Joseph—tags always curled into his collar, tucked up his sleeve. Resignation, for even if Jacob doesn't wish to pay Joseph's price, he'll do whatever he's told.

“Have you been thinking about this long?” Jacob asks. There's a third person with Faith and Staci now. From this distance, Jacob can't make out any identifying features but the fact that they're blonde. Faith weaving to and fro before them doesn't clear up his sights any, either.

“Truthfully? For a few weeks, now. I've heard that our dear Deputy Pratt has taken on some new extracurricular activities up in the Mountains, besides leading you astray from your Vow, of course.” At Jacob's quiet chuckle, Joseph leans a little harder against the side of the truck, smile more genuine. Less Father and more Joseph. “You haven't even tried to be subtle about it, Jake, but I guess I cannot fault you.”

Jacob wonders how seriously the Father takes his own Vow, remembers tan hands on Staci's shoulder, barely enough space between them for the slightest breeze to eek passed. As long as it's not with what's _His_ , Jacob cares fuck all if Joseph breaks his stupid Vow. He's never taken it seriously, himself, and only partially enacts it as his own Compound with his men. In the Whitetails they've got a situation similar to Don't Ask Don't Tell going on.

“Awfully kind of you, Father,” Jacob snarks.

“Do you think it would be unwise? Is he not Strong enough to lead a region?”

There are barbs all over that question. Jacob licks his lips and sits up straight in the truck bed, turns his body to face Joseph fully. Staci being Jacob's would not save either of them from Joseph ordering Staci elsewhere, either to serve the Family or the Father. While Jacob doesn't expect this to happen, views it as an extreme even for Joseph, it's still a possibility he's got to map out and plan for.

If he makes Staci out to be too weak, if he dulls his luster so he's not so attractive to Joseph, he might be asked to Cull him.

If he shines him too bright, if he bears Staci's Strength before the Father and the Family and the fire, Joseph might make him a Herald all his own and issue a wedge between them as big as the divide between their territories.

Somewhere between would be good, but it's a line Jacob has to find in the dark and toe correctly the first time.

“Truthfully?” Jacob says, mimicking Joseph's earlier tone and stance. Head cocked to the side, voice an octave too low to be entirely playful. “I don't think he's ready for it—yet. Pratt's surprised me at every turn, but I don't know if he's quite Herald material. He makes a good Second, takes orders well.”

“He'd be one of my Seconds, Jacob, just as you are,” Joseph carefully reminds, smile still in place.

Jacob takes a deep breath and rubs at his face. Exhausted all of a sudden, by the Bliss in his system and the false floors in Joseph's words. “You'll do what you have to do,” Jacob replies. He holds Joseph's gaze and sorely wishes he weren't wearing those damn glasses so he could read his brother better.

They sit in silence for a few minutes, both lost in thought. Joseph's just opening his mouth to ask another question when there's a great crashing sound and screaming. As he whips his body around, as Jacob scrabbles out of the truck bed to his feet, Joseph notes that he can hear Faith singing over the rising chaos.

-

Staci hasn't even made it all the way down the spread of food when an arm is thrust through his. He tenses up only slightly, ninety nine percent sure he knows who it is. When Faith's singsong laughter fills his ears, the tension leaves him entirely and he leans into her warmth. The lace of her dress whispers against the skin of his exposed forearms, scratches against the denim of his jeans.

Faith had spent a lot of time in the Whitetails recently, sometimes sitting up with Jacob in their quarters into the early hours of the morning. She kept her voice low when Staci was trying to read or sleep, had encouraged Jacob to do the same. Not that he _could_ sleep with so much going on in the room— _without Jacob in the bed too, huh, Peaches?_ —but it was kind, _she_ was kind, and he had liked her immediately after that initial bump in the road with her on the floor.

Jacob's cast to her throat, the wheel of Jacob's office chair idly spinning.

She watched him as he led his charges through Training, perched on a nearby wall or desk. Backed him up when Jacob was attempting to remove his cast prematurely, _Do you want your hand to heal all fucked up, Jacob? Listen to me and Peaches._ Trimmed his hair for him when he fussed about it getting in his eyes, and for all of the bearded, long haired Eden's Gate members up in the Whitetails, did no one own a fucking spare hair tie? She brought him sweets and new clothes as Staci began putting weight back on, and was just generally _there_ and _good_ to him.

There were probably strings attached to every little action, just like with Jacob and Joseph, but Staci's sure the sting of those pressing into him would be sweet and soft. He wonders briefly what his life would've been like had he been chosen by her instead of Jacob. Blissed out in the Henbane, probably an Angel by now. Like the Rookie.

She doesn't talk much about the Junior Deputy. Had Jacob been the one to break her, Staci would've been reminded about it over and over.

“Are our boys having a tiff?” Faith laughs. “Jacob looks like he's got a stick up his ass. You'd know wouldn't you, Peaches? Did you introduce something new into your bedroom or is Jacob just reacting to the Father's usual self?”

Staci's cheeks burn as he turns in towards her and hides his laugh. “Just Jacob being Jacob, I suppose.”

Faith hums quietly beneath her breath and continues leading Staci down the table. They haven't moved very far when she stands up straighter and tightens her hold on his arm. Her grip's surprisingly strong for a woman as slight as she is.

“Don't look now, but there's a birdie in the bedroom,” she says, and Staci can see the sharp points of her canines as she smiles with her tongue clamped between her teeth. When Staci attempts to follow her line of sight, she pulls him into her hard. “I said don't look, silly! She'll come to us all on her own. Be patient.”

“She?” Staci asks. He tries again to look where she's looking, and this time Faith doesn't fight him. All he sees before him are trucks and new members of the Family arriving to their event. Mostly men and women he's never seen, a few that he vaguely recognizes from Joseph's Compound. Nothing extraordinary, nothing out of the ordinary. Her flippancy keeps him from bracing into a defensive posture, but something about her steadily building game of cat and mouse, cat and _birdie,_ has his guts cramping anxiously.

Faith is not kind all of the time, after all. She might not be a Seed in blood but a Seed she still is.

“Know that I choose you,” she says cryptically, voice suddenly grave, “and that I'll support whichever route you choose.”

In the crowd of the Faithful unloading from vehicles, a blonde woman perks up when she sees Faith and begins their way. She's beautiful, Staci notes, delicate wrists and throat kissed with beauty marks. Long, luxurious blonde hair curling thickly over full breasts. She swings her hips when she walks, steps quick and sure as the space between them is eaten up.

The hairs on the back of Staci's neck stand up, and Faith's arm tightens within his.

“Sister Faith!” Her teeth are white as she smiles, perfectly straight, framed by soft pink lips. Staci can't get over how _beautiful_ she is, even under the rough conditions in which some of the Faithful toil. Skin unblemished, unbroken. He can't even see a single Sin carved into her flesh.

He gets the impression that she hasn't exactly shed her former life in its entirety, but Staci guesses that she probably hasn't been with the Family for too long. She looks young, younger than Staci by a handful of years.

“Is he here?” Her voice is anxious as she rocks to and fro from the tips of her toes to the base of her heel, arm curled around her midsection.

“He is,” Faith replies, and her voice is different somehow. A quiet mania dripping off her words, flickering in the firelight. Feeding it. The clearing feels hotter all of a sudden, sweat beading on Staci's forehead. Distantly Staci notes that they're closer to the fire. “He surely is.”

“Where? Has he asked about me? I'd like to see him.”

Faith is moving them slightly back and forth, keeping their arms linked and their bodies directly in front of the girl—because that's what she is. She's gotta be, what? Barely twenty-one—

It hits him like a sack of bricks.

 _Pretty little thing, barely twenty-one_. Jacob rubbing his crotch in Staci's face, stinking of whiskey and woodsmoke. _Popped her cherry, I think._

_Wanna taste her?_

Faith's little birdie come to roost.

_it's complicated, faith_

_complicated complicated complicated_

Staci does not sway, does not let his jaw drop like he wants. He simply takes a deep, deep breath, but that alone has Faith nearly vibrating beside him. Energy crackles between them, like a soda bottle shaken up. Primed to explode, shoot its cap and fizz everywhere.

“He's here.” She's almost singing. Her grip on Staci's forearm should be painful but he can't feel it over the thunderous beating of the blood in his veins, rushing through his ears. “Oh, is he here.” Face turned in to Staci's, pressing a giggle into his cheek. “He's here!”

The girl seems to suddenly realize there's a third person there. She blinks, shakes her head, like a robot whose programming has momentarily lagged, before she smiles at him and extends her hand in greeting. “I'm Delilah.”

Samson's wife, his betrayer. Another fucking Biblical name, Jacob and Joseph and John, but Staci figures this one's close to the mark.

“Pratt,” he replies, and it's like talking around a mouthful of gravel.

Her hand is soft in his, uncalloused. Probably never been covered in blood or handcuffed to a radiator, a cot. It'd look good, pale and smooth on Jacob's rough, beaten skin. Braced on his chest as she rides him, or draped around his neck as he thrusts into her from on top. Jacob's strong body cradled between her spread thighs.

_Thought about you when I was in her, y'know._

Does she know who he is? Who he is to Jacob? God, does she know that he knows what she _tastes like_? From the look on her face, open and eager and genuine, Staci can guess that she doesn't—but what the fuck does he do with that?

Hey, you fucked My Person but you're never gonna do it again, nice to meet you?

He turns his face to Faith and shares in her crazed laughter. Her cheekbone brushes against his lip as they curl into each other, breathless with it.

“Oh, oh, Peaches. What're you gonna do?” Faith whispers, almost singing to him. “You know what she wants—who she wants.”

“He's mine,” Staci breathes. He can just barely make out Delilah asking them a question over the roaring of blood in his ears, the lull of Faith's quiet song. They're standing much closer to the fire than they had been. Practically on top of it after Faith has been shifting them back and forth. Sheparding them. The heat from it is warm on his face and side, and he can feel the Bliss working its way through his bloodstream much stronger than before. Feels drunk with it, reckless.

Delilah seems to shimmer before him, little flashes of pale red and silvery white, like stars in the sky, like the blinking lights of towers or wolf beacons in the distance.

“I think you've worked too hard to be anything but the cat in this scenario, Peaches. Peaches like the cougar!” Staci can feel the energy ramping up within her and taps into it himself. It vibrates on his tongue like the Bliss wine had, tingly and sweet.

“What do you think he'll do when I tell him? Do you think he'll be excited?” There's a nervous, eager flutter in Delilah's voice. Innocent, too innocent for all of this, and he hates her for it. For knowing Jacob's body in a way she shouldn't, for being spared all of the trauma and hardship and fucking bullshit Staci's had to wade through to survive, to _thrive._

He's had to work for his Strength, nearly shattered apart to get to where he is now. He'll not be usurped by a near _child_ with a pretty face and a wet, available cunt.

“Oh, I don't _know_ what _he'll_ do when you tell him. Why don't you go ahead? Tell me like you'd tell _him_.” Faith's speaking so quickly now, tripping over her own words. The Faithful closest to the flames have backed up a little as they've teetered closer and closer, only a few feet now from the writhing, burning mass of fire. 

Delilah seems to think she's excited for her, supportive of her news. She crosses the little remaining space between them, right at the lip of the circle of rocks around the fire, and frantically whispers, “I'm pregnant!”

The air leaves Staci like he's been punched in the gut. He's unable to keep his jaw from dropping this time, and while he knows Faith is squeezing him even harder, he can't feel it.

Pregnant? Jesus fucking Christ.

Jacob might have some conflicted, possessive feelings about Staci, might even be teetering towards _Love_ , but the man is desperate for Family. The thought of someone taking his spot, his _Man_ , because they can bear Jacob's children, because they just happened to be a pretty face and a prettier cunt when Jacob was drunk and trolling, has red bursting in Staci's vision like fireworks. Like in the Song, everything shimmering and drenched in hellfire.

“That's, uh, that's—” he croaks. Head spinning, he finally extracts his arm from Faith and runs both hands through his trimmed hair. Grips the sides of his skull on his second pass through and _squeezes_.

“Isn't it great? After John, Jacob was so upset. It was all I could do to comfort him to keep him from falling apart.” Lies, lies lies lies lies. Staci wants to scream that Jacob was having a crisis of an entirely different variety when she and he had had sex. “But a baby, a new Seed—”

A calmness falls over him, and he stands up straighter. Licks his lips, licks his chops like a fucking wolf, and cocks his head to inspect Delilah coldly. There's a harshness within himself spreading its wings like a monster in the night—Jacob's little Monster, Faith's called him that before, too—and it sinks into it. Rolls and pops his shoulders with it, like he's urging his own wings to spring forth.

Faith is buzzing so much Staci wonders if she'll take flight.

“He doesn't want you,” he tells Delilah quietly. “Doesn't need you.”

They're so close together that she can see herself in Staci's black, black eyes, frowning and confused and outlined in fire. It's hot against her back, but she can't step away from it with Faith and Pratt boxing her in. She looks around and sees that the rest of her Family have left, are standing back a safe distance with hungry, Bliss drunk expressions on their faces.

“Can we—”

“ _We_ can't do anything. _We'll_ never do anything.” His fingers are steepled before his face, pressed to his lips. He gestures forward at her then, hands together as if in prayer. “ _He_ is mine. Not yours. And I won't – I won't share him with some undeserving _Jezebel_. You're not what he needs. You're not Strong enough, you're Weak and and and I'm Stronger. The Strong have to Cull the Weak, Delilah.”

With red swamping his vision, Staci parts his hands and pushes.

“Bye, bye, birdie!” Faith crows. Arms out, head back. Twirling and giggling and singing as Delilah crashes into the heart of the fire and screams and screams.

Staci's smelt burning flesh before in the Training, but it was weak then, just a little burn here or a cauterized wound there. Here it's even stronger than the Bliss, sickly sweet in the air – sweeter than the bison roasting just off to the side. Almost like pork.

They're accumulating quite the crowd of Faithful around the fire, but no one moves in past where Staci and Faith are stationed.

Delilah wails and begs for help, for mercy, for the Father, for _her_ father. Clawing at the edges of the ditch the fire's housed in, her dress and hair engulfed in flames.

No one moves to help.

He's moving suddenly, swirling around. The only thing keeping him from falling flat on his ass and possibly rolling into the fire, too, is the strong, scarred hand clamped in the meat of his shoulder, yolking him around.

Jacob's eyes are wide and frantic as they rove over his body, looking for injury. His other hand trembles as it cradles Staci's throat, and Staci allows his eyes to shudder as he leans into Jacob's grip with a blissed sigh.

“Staci—what the _Fuck_ was that—what did she do—”

“Are you alright, Child?” Joseph says. Staci hadn't even noticed him there, only had eyes for Jacob.

_only only only jacob_

“Cat caught the canary,” Faith singsongs. She grabs them both by their elbows and urges them into swaying with her. Neither man fights her, and soon they're moving faster, faster, away from the screaming and the now singing Faithful circling the bonfire. “Cat caught the canary and now that little birdie's never gonna sing again, Jakey.”

There's no fear in Jacob's wide, wide blue eyes.

“You're mine,” Staci breathes. His lower lip trembling, his body shaking with it. So much energy and Bliss and euphoria, so much _justness_ rushing through his veins that Staci's eyes threaten to roll back into his head. “Just mine.”

Jacob inhales deeply, swaying closer to Staci. The hand against Staci's throat squeezes, his thumb pressing sweetly into the pressure point in his neck.

Staci can practically see the Lust spark and catch fire in his eyes.

“Take me Home, Jacob.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you ever have something that just KEEPS GETTING AWAY FROM YOU? the end is in sight but god y'all i got good eyes and shit depth perception so fmkdmflksldf i'm not fucking sure if i'm gonna be able to wrap it up next chapter or not, at this point i'm just going where the story and my beautiful, lovely tumblr cheerleaders take me


	11. Chapter 11

The cab of the truck is silent save their breathing. Jacob's knuckles are white on the wheel, his chest nearly flush against it as they roar passed the forested hills of the Henbane. Long legs bent uncomfortably so he can press down hard on the gas.

The inside of skull is buzzing with the image of Staci Pratt calmly watching a woman burn to death, his expression almost disinterested in it all. Like the smell of burning hair or her shrill shrieking meant nothing to him.

His eyes when Jacob had whirled him around, though.

No brown to his irises to speak of, just the all encompassing blackness of his Blissed pupils, and the red red red haze of Staci's fury, his _Strength_. A silent possessiveness that had hit Jacob like a physical entity.

God, Jacob's been hard since the clearing, his dick a solid line of burning heat snug against the zipper of his jeans.

Why does the Compound have to be so fucking far _away_?

“You gonna tell me what she said to you or are you gonna just leave me in suspense?” Jacob asks, mostly because he wants, _needs_ to know, but also because they're still a ways out and he desperately needs something to occupy his thoughts. If he keeps thinking about bending Staci over the hood and breeding him until they're both entirely spent, he's gonna crash the truck.

“She, uh...she just kept going on and on,” Staci says. He shifts in his seat, aroused himself still, and looks out the window as they barrel through the night. Not that he can make anything out anyway, with the night being so dark and Jacob driving so quickly.

Another traffic violation he'd have ticketed Jacob for, lifetimes ago. A life that's no longer his own, that doesn't even feel like it had been his in the first place. A mirage, a fever dream his brain had conjured to make up for the Whitetails' mistreatment until this thing between he and Jacob had begun and woken him up.

Jacob groans, displeased. “C'mon, Peaches, y'gotta tell me. Did she ask about me? You get possessive?” Jacob eases on the accelerator a little so he can safely leer at Staci. He can't fully see his face, but he can see Staci's cheeks pinken a little and his lips curl into a smile. “Did she? Oh, I bet she did. Had to stake your claim, did you?”

“You're mine,” Staci says, assured of the fact. His shoulders rise and fall as he shrugs, body loose and warm with Bliss and arousal. “I corrected the situation.”

 _The situation—_ Jacob fights to keep his breathing from elevating, cheek clamped between his teeth to keep from moaning with it. Feels his dick straining against the zipper of his jeans and flexes his fingers against the wheel again. If he could risk taking a hand off the wheel to touch himself, his hand would already be in his pants. “Y'gotta tell me. Humor me, c'mon. Get me through this car ride.”

Staci's got two choices here: he can tell Jacob the whole truth, bring up the potential pregnancy and how Staci terminated it, or he can lie.

As far as Staci knows, only three people knew about the pregnancy—Delilah, Faith, and himself. If he keeps it from Jacob, the only other person that would know and be able to connect it to Jacob would be Faith. While he doesn't trust her entirely—trusts her more than Joseph, but she's still a Seed, and not a Seed Staci is bound to, wrapped entirely in, _fucking—_ he thinks back on her words of support. Firelight in her hair and in her eyes, _Know that I choose you_.

He doesn't want to bring up the pregnancy, ever if he can get away with it. A child is not something he can give Jacob—and he doesn't even know if Jacob _wants_ children—but he can't risk Jacob wanting them and leaving Staci for someone else in order to get them.

He's endured too much to lose it all now.

The beatings and the starvation. Sleeping in human filth and enduring the Song over and over. Breaking apart, being reshaped harder, more obedient, Stronger. Killing a man with his own bare hands—killing six people now, all of them _for_ Jacob, not because he ordered it but because Staci's heart did.

And the worst cruelty of them all: falling in fucked up, bloodstained Love with Jacob Seed. Ass over tea kettle in Love with his captor, Stockholm fucking Syndrome'd.

Jacob might've been livid about the pregnancy, ordered her to terminate it, but it was a risk Staci couldn't take. A threat to his survival, to his relationship. An element he cannot afford to be introduced into the equation, so he removed it. Cleansed it from his life with fire.

He didn't know how Jacob would react to the truth. For all of Jacob's showmanship, his little speeches and his flare for the dramatic, he's difficult to read. All of his fanfare is a smokescreen, dazzling lights to blind you from who he really is.

Staci fucks the man nearly every night and still has a hard time getting a solid reading. He flip flops his emotions constantly, sometimes leaving Staci scrabbling, feeling like he did at the very Beginning when he was trying to find weaknesses to exploit in the routines of Jacob and his men.

Would he be mad that the potential for heirs was taken from him? Family is very important to him. Unity and Brotherhood and the Collective, hoo fuckin' rah.

Would he be pleased with Staci's initiative, his possessiveness? Jacob's got a possessive streak in him a mile wide—loves to mark Staci, come in him, keep him close when they travel the Compound together. Staci being possessive right back gets him going, too, Jacob privately craving Belonging, to a family and to a lover.

Upset? Proud? Threatened by Staci making moves without his say so?

The possibilities whirl through Staci's mind, flashing through his brain like one of Jacob's slideshows.

Click. Jacob unfazed by Staci's decision.

Click. Jacob furious, anguished. Lost in the Red, hands around Staci's throat.

Click. Jacob pulling the truck over to fuck Staci on its hood, aroused by his Strength.

Click. Jacob thinking Staci's coming for his throat and taking Staci out before he can get overthrown.

Too many variables.

Lying it is.

He can feel Jacob's eyes on his face, knows Jacob wants him to turn toward him so he can watch Staci give him every sordid detail, but Staci just can't. Won't be able to get through this without giving himself away if he looks into Jacob's too blue, Blissed eyes.

The only way he's going to get through this conversation is to hide his face. Mask his slight anxiety by playing hard to get.

“She just kept going on and on about being chosen by you. How you two were destined, like having your dick in her once made her special,” he lies, sneering his voice for effect. Wills his body to not give him away. So far he's got it all under control, his body still loose and warm, though his erection has flagged a little from nerves. He doesn't have to worry much about _that_ , at least, between the Bliss still in his system and Jacob's obvious arousal floating around the cab.

His esteem might be higher within the Family now, his situation more secure and comfortable, but lying to Jacob feels wrong. It's a punishable offense, cut rations and more Training. A betrayal.

Staci's so far gone now it's instinctual to bear all of himself to Jacob, but he's also Strong enough now to curl tight enough around himself in self preservation. Hoard his secrets and those of other's and use them—or not—at his discretion.

Jacob's laughter is breathy and warm, pleased by Staci's spite. Just hearing that Jacob's buying this all makes it a little easier to keep going. “I _am_ fantastic in bed, Peaches. Maybe she just wanted another taste.”

A wave of red red red breaks over Staci. He takes a deep breath and wipes his palms on his lap, stretches them out to grip at his knees. “She won't get another one, I made sure of it. No one will.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Jacob shiver and clench the wheel tighter.

“Keep going,” he urges, his voice low and rasping, burning up in his arousal.

“She seemed to think you two had something special. You should've seen her face when I told her who I was, who I am to you. Who you are to _me_.” The words are flowing out of him so effortlessly that he risks turning to face Jacob. Staci watches his chest quickly rise and fall around deep inhales from his nose. There's a bead of sweat trickling down the side of his face Staci just wants to put his mouth on. “Told her what I'd done for you, for _us_ , and that I'd do it again.”

They're not going to make it to the Compound.

Jacob swallows hard and starts to decelerate. Casts his eyes around the sides of the road, looking for the best place to pull over. He spots a break in a copse of trees just off the main road and heads towards it.

“She was too Weak for you, anyway. Beautiful, certainly, but Weak. She'd never fuck you like I fuck you—never do for you what I've done, what I could do. So I did what you'd have done. I culled the herd.”

The sound that erupts from Jacob's mouth leaves him against his will. Animalistic, primal, like a bitch in heat.

The truck comes to a stop a few dozen feet from the main road, in a small clearing encircled by tall, dark trees. Moonlight fills the cabin, and Staci watches Jacob throw the truck into park. His hand trembles with arousal on the gear shifter and Staci watches, breathing heavily, as the bead of sweat traveling down Jacob's face meets his auburn beard.

Without a word, Jacob reaches over Staci's lap and flings open the glove box. He retrieves the bottle of lube he had stashed there earlier and calmly, silently, gets out of the truck.

When he's standing in the doorway, he exhales loudly. Shakes out his limbs, cracks his neck, before leaning back into the truck a little and calmly saying to Staci, “Get in the fucking truck bed, Peaches.”

Staci wastes no time complying. Fights with the seatbelt futilely before managing to blessedly free himself.

He gets to the tailgate a second after Jacob does, and while Jacob fights to get it to drop—it had stuck at the Bonfire, made Jacob work for it before it released, some inner mechanism stiff and rusted—Staci presses himself to Jacob's back. Rocks his hips into Jacob's ass as he nuzzles the back of his neck, nips at the back of his ear.

“Stuck again, huh?” he breathes, hot and wet.

Jacob makes a sound, half whine half snarl. Finally wrenches the god damn tailgate down. He hoists himself into the bed with one arm, muscles flexing in the moonlight beneath his scars.

He's almost all the way in when he's being urged down, and the force of Staci's hands, his urgency, has Jacob's shoulder crashing into the truck's frame as he turns halfway into it.

It's worth it to have Staci shaking on top of him, pushing Jacob into the cold metal of the truck bed. Forcing his thighs apart so Staci can comfortably rest between them, so he can lean down and press biting kisses into every available inch of scarred skin.

His hands shake as he rips at Staci's shirt, frantically trying to push the offending garment up and fucking _away_ so he can get at what's beneath. Staci's got the same idea, his teeth against Jacob's earlobe, hips pressing into Jacob's, while his fingers tug at the front of Jacob's button up.

There's a string of quiet _pops!_ and then cool air is on Jacob's stomach, on his chest, followed swiftly by both of Staci's hands. Thin, nimble fingers ghosting up his ribcage, through his chest hair, then suddenly both in tandem squeezing and pulling at his nipples, until they bead up dusky pink and taut.

“Gonna take me, Peaches? You think you can?” Jacob asks even while hissing at the burn of it, back arching hard. Thrusts his hips upward against Staci, desperate for friction. “C'mon, show me how _strong_ you are.”

“Jacob, Jacob, Jacob,” Staci chants. His name hot and wet on Jacob's ear, guttural, like Staci's Bliss-drunk arousal has burnt up his airway. They're followed quickly by a somehow wetter and hotter tongue, the flat of it dragging up from Jacob's jawline and back to his earlobe.

So hot Jacob wonders if it'll scar him further, burn him over already damaged, ruinous skin. Burn so hot it erases the memories of how he got those scars—a too hot summer's day and a wooden barn blazing in the sun, Jacob drawn into its light like a moth; driving in a humvee over a landmine; chemical warfare, its hiss as it eats away at his flesh; sunburn in the desert so severe his skin splintered and cracked—and leave him with _this_ , Staci Blissed out and taking charge.

God, he hopes it burns away everything else.

Jacob offers more of his throat and grins, bares his teeth to the cool night air. He knows what Staci wants, but if Jacob's gonna give him the reigns in the end he might as well make Staci work for it. Rile him up further, see how aggressive he can make his boy. Wind him up, up, up, and spread his legs to reap the rewards.

“Peaches,” he taunts, canting his hips up. He takes care not to buck Staci off—Staci's weight might be steadily returning, but even at Staci's healthiest Jacob had a least thirty pounds on him—and _extreme_ care to drag as much of his clothed dick over Staci's own. Hard for him beneath dark denim, impossibly warm.

Teeth, sharp and bright against his jaw. It's so quiet in the woods around them—just their harsh breathing, the squeak of shock absorbers groaning under their thrusting weights, the distant trilling of crickets—that Jacob swears he can hear the tips of Staci's canines rip into his skin. It aches, the sting of it magnified with the Bliss raging through Jacob's veins, rippling through his neck. Goosebumps dust his upper half, and he sinks his own teeth into his cheeks to keep a rumbling groan inside.

Then that impossibly hot tongue, pressed hard and heavy to Jacob's newest wound. Its heat salves the sting, and the subsequent hollowing of Staci's cheeks, the strong pull of suction drawing his blood out of his skin, soothes it down to a dull, throbbing ache.

No amount of cheek biting could prevent the sound that leaves Jacob in its wake, higher pitched than he's strictly comfortable with. Breathy, whiny. Needy. Less punched out and more _slapped_ out.

He twists a hand in Staci's hair until Staci whines with it, a pathetic mewling sound to match Jacob's own. “Show me how strong you are,” he says again, “that you deserve to fuck me.”

The weight on top of him bares down harder, his legs urged even further apart around Staci's narrow waist. There's a rapid thudding against his pec, Staci's heart racing above him. Staci's breath smells like blood on top of the Bliss-wine, puffing out sweet and tangy when Staci nuzzles into Jacob's cheekbone.

Jacob feels frenzied, crackling with energy and desire. His hands urge to reach out, to claim, to force Staci onto his back and swoop down atop him, to hell with this little role reversal—while at the same time the thought of Staci on him, in him, bearing down and fucking him just right has his toes curling in his boots, gooosebumps sweeping up and down his body.

Staci taking pleasure in his body because Jacob is _his._ Using his dick to shove that ownership deep, deep inside.

It's been a long time since Jacob had anyone fuck him. It physically feels good, but emotionally has him clawing at the walls. It's too intimate, almost, too much carefully offered weakness for it to sit well—too much _submission_. It's not often he submits to anyone, and it's an alien, raw feeling to want to do so. No control, like careening off a cliff and hoping for the best.

Like when the old scars on his face weren't old but _new,_ were livid and stung and burned with even just the slightest breeze grazing them. Skin too tight, the pulse beating within his wounds somehow a step off the mark of his heart, thud THUD thud THUD thud THUD, echoing how strange and Other he must look on the outside. To match him inside.

_thud THUD thud THUD_

But if there's anyone he'd submit to, it'd be Staci. Owes him at least that much, if not more. Much, much more, but ultimately Jacob Seed is a selfish man.

Jacob's hands shake as he curls them into fists in the fabric of Staci's shirt, into Staci's still very much fucking _on_ henley. He seriously considers ripping it in half just to get at more skin.

“Say my name, Jacob, God,” Staci says desperately, “say you're mine.” He presses the flat of his palm hard against the center of Jacob's MONSTER brand and drags it down, fingernails catching on Jacob's skin, little strips of it curling under his nails. His hand doesn't stop until it's at the cool metal of Jacob's belt clasp, and with a flick of his wrist the metal _shings!_ open, Staci's motion confident, practiced, but his hand trembling with built up Lust.

The world around them seems to hold its breath, anticipating their next move. Jacob can't even make out the crickets anymore.

“Yours.” Crashing through the stillness, shock paddles to the frozen chest of the forest. It's just enough to shake the Earth's voice free. Just one word, barely a breath, but a harsh wind blows through the treetops in its wake, whistling through damp leafs. Like it's taking Jacob's submission and whisking it off into the night before he can retract it.

In the distance, Jacob swears he can hear a lone wolf's howl. Desperately, deliriously he hopes it gets a response.

The body above his shudders hard.

“Jacob,” he whines. Staci presses his forehead against the side of Jacob's and presses sweet, feverish kisses into his scarred skin. His fingers trembling as he slowly unbuttons Jacob's jeans, the teeth of his zipper biting into Staci's knuckles as he pulls the tab down, down, down.

“Show me,” Jacob whispers, voice just as desperate as Staci's. His body burns with embarrassment as well as desire, both clunking through his veins, icy one moment then scorching the next.

“Gonna be so good for you, _to_ you, Jacob. Gonna fuck you so good, you'll never think about anyone else. Never want anyone else. Just me, Jacob, only me.” The words just keep pouring out of him. Unlike Jacob, Staci had never really been a huge talker in bed. He'd moan and he'd encourage his partners, but at a more sedate pace.

Something about Jacob sets him ablaze, makes him desperate to give as much as he gets. Keep Jacob's filthy mouth going so he'll praise him more, so he'll give more of himself away.

He tugs Jacob's jeans down his knees, as far as he can get them down while still between them. Then he lifts himself off Jacob long enough to shimmy backward and dive down, between Jacob's spread legs and beneath the scrunched up body of his jeans.

Jacob's trapped by them, bound at the ankle by the bunch of them tight on the tops of his boots. His heart flutters anxiously at this new development, but Staci's never done him any harm. Always so good to him, even when Jacob didn't deserve it.

God, he still didn't deserve it.

He's not wearing underwear, never does, so the scratch of rough denim along his oversensitive cock as Staci slowly rolls his hips forward has him hissing. Precum spots along the crotch of Staci's jeans as his cockhead drags against the fabric.

Staci's still kissing at his face, soft presses of his lips to Jacob's temple, his cheekbones, the tip of his nose. It's too much, his touch almost reverent, and Jacob turns away from it all, cheeks ablaze. Frustrated by how his body's just melting into this, how his shriveled heart seems to sing at the tender, sensual rolling of Staci's hips into him. In effort to escape it, he lifts an arm to cover his eyes and wills Staci to just get the show on the road.

“No, no, no, look at me, Jacob. Look at me.” Staci stills above him, heart pounding in his chest. He slides up onto his knees, pushing Jacob up onto his thighs a bit, and pulls Jacob's arm up from his face.

The metal of the truck bed is cold beneath Jacob's arm, but Staci's wrist is like a brand, a whole new burn in the shape of Staci's fingers. Jacob could easily break Staci's grip, could easily flip them both and just fucking _take_ from Staci. Have him wailing, spitted on Jacob's dick as he pounds out all of his conflicting emotions. His dominance asserted and this random desire to submit swiftly put to bed.

But he doesn't.

Staci's eyes are damp in the moonlight when he meets them, pinning him to the cool metal below with more force than gravity, desperately searching his face.

Jacob exhales heavily, shakily, and slowly, ever so slowly, mumbles, “Y'gonna make _love_ to me, Peaches? That what this is?” Barbs his words so they'll land, wound Staci and encourage this to become rough again. To return to territory Jacob's familiar with.

He doesn't expect Staci's quiet, almost hysterical laugh. It sounds anguished to Jacob's ears, cracked like they both are.

“Yeah, I guess I am, Jacob. If you'll let me,” he answers quietly. His eyes are still wet and his smile is small, sad, trembling minutely. He looks so young holding himself above Jacob, doubtful and scared but so, so hopeful. Big brown doe eyes and soft pink lips, the only scars on his face gifted to him by Jacob and his men.

“Yours,” Staci whispers, and it sounds so damningly like _I love you_.

Fucked up like they're fucked up, warped and perverted by strife and posession, but still _Theirs_.

_yours yours yours_

It hurts, cracks Jacob wide open to Staci and to God.

Jacob takes a deep breath and makes the conscious decision to lower his sword, his shield, his walls. To surrender this once, to fall prey to yet another Weakness, shaking with adrenaline and Love and so much fear. Knowing that by doing this even just the once makes him more susceptible to its repetition. Doing it anyway.

He thinks of how they were in this very truck bed less than two hours ago—puzzle pieces smashed together to fit, edges and corners mangled and messed and forced but still fitting together. Thinks of the words he almost said, would have said had Joseph not interrupted, body buzzing with Bliss. Terrified but still confident in this, in them.

Jacob wills his body to relax into the truck bed. Pliant, open; vulnerable. Cold suddenly without Staci's body pressing him down, his goosebumps raging down his body in a wave. He swallows hard around his fear, his reservations and his defenses, and quietly returns, “Yours.”

It's a humbling sight, watching Jacob consciously remove the straps of his armor, the silvery scars on his chest flashing in the moonlight like chainmail. Hesitant to do more than look should anything he do break the spell, Staci continues to search Jacob's face.

He wants this good, wants it Good, wants Jacob desperate for him and drowning in pleasure, but Jacob has to want it, too. Not just compliant but actively, deliriously wanting it. It won't work without him being as needy as Staci, so Staci hunkers down and waits for Jacob to make the next move.

“ _Staci_ _,_ ” Jacob whispers. He doesn't recognize his own voice, high and reedy and out of control. It's so _loud_ in the quiet of the forest, echoing off of the giant, looming trees in the black of the night, drenched in moonlight.

When Staci doesn't move, just continues watching him, Jacob gets an idea. His cheeks burn again, but he doesn't break eye contact as he wriggles his wrist free and then laces their fingers together.

With a shuddering exhale, Staci blankets him with his body once more, pulling their joined hands down to rest on Jacob's bare chest, but it's Different. Softer, reverent, like they're somehow untouched by the darkness in which their union had arisen from. He lowers his forehead to Jacob's once they're touching all over and just _breathes_ with him, taking him in as he blinks lazily. Freckles and crows feet and livid scarring and eyes so blue they physically hurt, Arctic ice so cold they burn.

There's the urge to squirm, to fidget, and it's not a feeling Jacob is familiar with. Put on display with the option to remove himself from the equation and choosing not to.

Eyes boring into Staci's own, Jacob leans forward and closes the slight gap between them with his lips. No tongue, no teeth, no crushing, desperate need—just his lips to Staci's, almost shyly.

Staci squeezes his hand softly, just the gentlest amount of pressure, and Jacob hiccups on a moan. It vibrates on his lips against Staci's, and finally, _finally_ it makes Staci move again. Gets him to place sweet, damp lips more firmly against Jacob's own. _Earns_ him the tip of Staci's tongue gingerly parting his lips and mapping out his mouth.

A roughened hand on his face, tipping Jacob's face back for a better angle. Staci kisses him like he can't get enough, like he needs Jacob to breathe.

Their fucking is usually frenzied but not like this. Now it just feels like they can't get close enough.

It's still all a little too much for Jacob. Too much, too soon. Unable to ease into it with how fucking _gentle_ he's being treated—used to things always hard and fast and rough, little time for pleasantries. Never been handled so gently before.

He pulls his mouth away, turns his head and breathes heavily, but then Staci's mouth is on his throat again. Kissing over the bite he had just given him, apologetic, lips dragging and rumbling over the sensitive skin.

It takes Jacob a moment to realize Staci's saying something.

On the third repetition, Jacob barely makes out Staci whispering, “Let me in.”

Jacob's eyes flutter closed. He rocks his hips into Staci's and uses his free hand to snake between them and begin undoing Staci's jeans. It's hard to do with one hand while they're both still rocking into each other, but he manages to get the jeans down the swell of Staci's ass, just low enough for his erection to spring free. Jacob swallows hard and wraps his hand around the both of them.

Head bowed, Staci watches Jacob touch them both. The skin of Jacob's groin is the only truly unmarked skin on his body. No burn scars, no bullet or knife wounds. He not even circumscribed—his skin's just soft, milky white and dusted with freckles and wiry red hair. So pale compared to Staci's own naturally dark skin.

Jacob unlaces their fingers to rear his hand back behind him and fish about until his fingers come in contact with the lube he had grabbed from the glove box. He presses it against Staci's chest, its cooled contents sloshing quietly inside its bottle.

“Don't need prep, just coat yourself and let's go,” he quietly urges, drawing his knees up and spreading his legs wider.

Staci just looks at him, face inscrutable. He gentle knocks Jacob's hand away from them both before he takes the offered lube and upends some of its chilly fluid into the palm of his hand.

Before Jacob realizes it, there's a cold, wet finger inside him, then quickly two.

“Don't need it,” he urges again, “Staci, c'mon, just—”

Staci crooks his fingers, and with his other hand he lightly touches the scratches he had just made on Jacob's chest. Eyes the bitemarks he's left, the new and the old. Sad, almost, as he finally makes it back to Jacob's eyes.

“Don't wanna hurt you,” he whispers, “not—I want it Good, Jacob. Let me make it Good?”

There's something in his throat, probably his fucking _heart_. Jacob nods wordlessly and bites his lip. Rocks his hips gently down into Staci's warming fingers, gently petting at his insides, his prostate, as he pushes in and out of his body and scissors.

By the end of Staci's diligent prepping, he can easily take three fingers. His cheeks are also crimson again, red as his hair, and his breath keeps hitching in his throat against his will.

The sounds he's made have been carried off by the night, but he won't be able to forget them, neither will Staci. Soft, needy moans. Desperate for more, body singing with pleasure.

They say nothing as Staci quietly slicks himself and then edges forward to position himself at Jacob's entrance. Jacob bites his lip hard and forces himself to maintain eye contact while his body's breached slowly and tenderly, giving him time to adjust. To breathe through it as the distant burn of it smudges into pleasurable pressure, as Staci's cockhead rubs along his prostate, nudges against his inner walls.

Over their harsh, rattling breaths, there's another wolf's howl.

Their lips meet once Staci's lowered himself back on top of Jacob, warm and heavy. His hips rock forward, gyrating, rolling into Jacob's body. Never stopping, alternating the pressure and speed—delicious, full pushes in, while his withdraws seem to hollow, hallow, breath catching in Jacob's throat as Staci's cock nearly slips free before plunging home again.

 _Staci's_ , cradled inside Jacob's core, good good good good.

Jacob weaves a hand through Staci's hair and uses the other to grip at his ass, urging him deeper. Spreads his legs as much as he can with his jeans binding his ankles, and _God_ how he wishes he'd thought to remove his stupid fucking boots.

“Jacob,” Staci pants, breath puffing wet and sweet along his forehead. “Say it.”

Too lost in it all to play his own mind games, to give into his own crippling doubts, Jacob brushes their noses and urges Staci's mouth onto his. Says again Staci's lips, “Yours.”

Staci whines, shifting around to get a better angle. He crawls up on his knees and pulls Jacob flush against him in his lap, propped up against the tops of Staci's thighs, back arched. He fucks into him harder, deeper, rocking forward along with the truck.

“There, there, there,” Jacob chants. “Gonna come in me, huh, Staci? Show me I'm yours, show me how _strong_ you've become. Only one I'd let do this, only you.”

Staci makes a wounded sound at the mention of the song's tagline and curls his fingers in the meat of Jacob's hips. Aimlessly kisses at his forehead, his cheekbones, his eyelids, peppering Jacob's entire face with them. He can feel the blush in Jacob's cheeks as it swells again, feel the skin gradually warm with each kiss. Staci's heart sings with it.

“You feel so good,” he tells him, “so tight for me. Built for it, built for _me_ , just me. No one else, Jacob, never anyone else. I'll kill them, too. I'll kill them all.” The softness of his voice at odds with his words, but they have Jacob shivering with their warmth, their intended message. “So beautiful, _fuck_ Jacob, mine. Mine, mine, mine.”

The hand in Staci's hair tightens, tugging lightly. Jacob's rocking into each and every thrust, shuddering as it brings Staci deeper inside his body.

“Jacob—I-I,” Staci begins. Opens his mouth and then closes it uselessly. Clenches his jaw and thrusts particularly hard, scooting Jacob up the truck bed.

Jacob nods, bumping their noses together again. “ _Yes. Yes,_ ” he whispers.

The pulse in Jacob's throat flutters under his mouth as Staci attaches his lips to the scarred bitemark he had given Jacob what felt like ages ago. He sucks the blood to the surface, teeth grazing and pressing into the flesh, as he sinks into Jacob's body, thrusting hard a handful of times before he stills. Comes so hard his sight bleaches out and he moans pitifully around the skin in his mouth.

They stay like that for a short while, both breathing heavily. When Staci's softened cock starts to slip loose of Jacob's body, Staci sighs happily and slides down the length of him.

Jacob watches fondly as that talented mouth is wrapped around his cockhead. Staci sucks hard at the tip and rolls his sac in one hand, just like Jacob likes. He leans into it and buries a hand in Staci's hair, not to push or direct but merely to anchor himself.

“So good for me, Staci,” Jacob murmurs. “Born to be mine. Never gonna let you go.”

Jacob's still so fucked out, slick and leaking, that his body accepts Staci's fingers once more with no resistance. He's soft inside, velvety and so, so hot.

Three of Staci's fingers crooked to his prostate and Jacob's curling in on himself, pulling lightly on Staci's hair as he moans. Fucking gently up into the wet hot grip of Staci's mouth, taking care not to lose control.

It's all so different from how they usually fuck, and the orgasm that's beginning to crest is different, too. He can feel the pressure and heat building in his lower stomach as Staci hums around Jacob's length, bobbing lower and lower with every dip of his head. It flutters in his stomach and makes his thighs quake. He convulsively swallows around moans and words of encouragement, can't get either out as Staci takes him deep into his throat and _sucks_ with his everything.

He manages to grunt out a _F-Fuck_ as he comes. Only knows he says it because the word rumbles on his tongue as he does so, as the blood rushes through his ears, deafening him.

His entire body feels tingly and broken in, oversensitive. Staci's fingers press teasingly against his walls as they're retracted, catching on the rim of his asshole as they leave him, and Jacob lifts his hips and hisses with it. Desperate for them to go but dreading the empty feeling that remains.

He feels detached, mostly bare and cold, until Staci shimmies out from beneath Jacob's jeans and comes to lay beside him in the truck bed. Both with their cocks still out. They curl into one another while they await their breathing evening out, while the soft hum of their afterglow washes over them.

They should really head back. Jacob should pull his pants up and get them back on the road. But instead he just turns into Staci. Fists a hand in his shirt, buries his face in Staci's hair—Jacob's own shampoo, sweat, and the scent of Bliss and woodsmoke—and breathes.

-

When they do eventually get up and right themselves, it's much too late to travel all the way back to the Compound.

Jacob drives a short ways down the main road, at a much more sedate, _legal_ pace. He seems to know what he's doing, where he's going, so Staci just relaxes in his seat. Body turned inward towards Jacob, cheek against the headrest and his spine against the door armrest. He watches the muscles in his arms flex as he manipulates the wheel. Watches his chest rise and fall as he breathes, his shirt only somewhat buttoned after Staci had ripped it open. The buttons somewhere in the truck bed, and Staci snorts softly at the thought.

“Something funny?” Jacob asks, his voice low and loose.

“Your buttons are all over the bed,” Staci snickers.

Jacob makes a considering sound and turns the wheel to the right. The moonlight filtering in through the front window flickers over his face, disrupted by trees as Jacob drives them towards their new destination.

Five minutes or so down a bumpy dirt road later, and a tiny cottage opens before them. Staci can see a dock in the back. The place had been beautiful, once, well manicured and taken care of. Now one of its windows is missing, another boarded up. The flowerbeds are squashed, some burnt to ash.

Not to mention the bodies littering the ground to the side of the house.

Jacob parks close to the corpses and exits without a word. He waits on the porch, not moving to enter the house until Staci catches up with him, and together they proceed inside.

It's even more wrecked on the inside than on the out. Broken wooden chairs and debris all over the floor—sparkling, broken glass everywhere, from broken vases and shattered picture frames, to the upended television in the corner. Blood soaking into the carpet, dripping dripping dripping a trail to the broken window, where Staci assumes the bodies were tossed out and into the yard.

Staci doesn't notice Jacob's left the living room until he comes back from down a hall and presses a towel into Staci's hand. It's soft, much softer than the ones back at the Compound, and Staci makes a mental note to bring the rest along with them for later.

“There's clothes in here that look like they'll fit at least you,” Jacob says, his lips quirking upward when Staci rolls his eyes.

“We can't all be jolly red giants, Jacob.” Jacob's quiet snickering warms his heart, has him closing the minute distance between them and kissing him. When he pulls back, Jacob looks surprised and fond and constipated—too much softness and emotion in one evening, coming down from the Bliss now.

This close up, Staci can't see the carnage all around them, the ruins of someone else's life.

This close up, all he sees is Jacob and this cute little cottage, and he lets his brain run off on a tangent on how things could have been for them had they met Differently.

Staci still smiles at him, full of enough softness for the two of them. “Not my fault you're a fucking behemoth.”

“That's not very nice, Peaches. Give you my body and this is how you treat me after.” They're both laughing now, quiet and exhausted and pressed against each other. Jacob looks him up and down and says, “I can probably find a clean shirt. We should shower and hit the hay, though. We're not hitting Fall's End until sundown, but we need to get up early to prepare.”

In the midst of it all, Staci had almost forgotten about the plan Jacob and Faith had spent all this time cooking up. Just thinking about it makes his stomach flutter, nerves and excitement and so, so much Guilt.

There's nothing he can do about it, though.

And even if there was something, he might not do it anyway. The Weak need to learn their place, and Staci's learned just how to teach them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here, have a late content warning for MAJOR SOFTNESS *:･ﾟ✧╰(◕ヮ◕╰)
> 
> sorry this took me forever!! i wrote 5k of a version of this and didn't like the Mouth Feel of it, so i rewrote most of it and took the parts i really liked and reinserted them!!


	12. Chapter 12

The bathroom suite off the master bedroom appears untouched by the chaos the rest of the cabin had endured. The frosted glass door of the shower intact. The delicately placed hanging vanity mirror pristine and unscuffed, like it had been recently cleaned. No bloodstains on the forest green rug, soft beneath Staci's bare feet.

Jacob stands less than a foot away from him, leaning into the shower stall to fiddle with the temperature knobs. Half of his ruined button up is damp, caught in the knozzle's spray when Jacob had whirled the hot knob all the way and got caught in a surprisingly powerful torrent of, thankfully still cool, water. He's more cautious of it now, tucked against the stationary stall wall and safely out of the stream of water—one moment too hot, the next too tepid.

He's grumbling beneath his breath as Staci studies the bathroom. The rest of the cottage is small, quaint, but the owners had spared no expense when decorating this room. It's huge in comparison to the rest of the cabin, almost half the size of the master suite. Fancy brass fixtures and expensive, warm beige and brown tiling. A vanity stylized to look like a a tree's trunk, with a huge bowled sink made out of granite.

The room's theme is tastefully woodsy—no little tacky knickknacks of moose or wolves, but sleek, polished deer antlers shining in the low light on either side of the vanity mirror. Antique light fixtures and exposed rock walls, rough beneath Staci's open hand, with pale wooden shelves and wicker baskets full of washcloths and spare bathing supplies.

He wonders about the former owners. Had they been locals, or retirees just looking to sit back and relax in the beautiful country Montana offered? Wealthy entrepreneurs looking for a quiet, nameless getaway?

He doesn't know this place, tucked off the beaten path out near the Henbane, but Hope County is huge and sprawling—unless people got into trouble, there were bound to be transplants that he hadn't gotten around to meeting.

Not all new people made a splash like the Seeds did.

He's shaken out of his thoughts when water droplets land on his face. He startles, shifts on the toilet lid he had been sitting on, and gazes up at Jacob. Jeans buttoned and shirt open, skin slightly damp from the spray and from the humidity slowly filling the room. Bitemarks on his neck, old and new, burns and Staci's clawmarks and MONSTER MONSTER MONSTER staring him in the face. Leading his eyes down, down, down to the red trail of hairs bisecting the trunk of his body, thicker and darker than the rest of the fuzz on his chest.

Hand extended before Staci's face, water still beaded on the digits, dripping.

Childish, playful. Flirting.

“Am I boring you, Peaches?” Jacob asks once Staci's attention is back on him. His trademark smirk in place, with its curve lilted by fatigue and its edges blunted, dulled by exposure to Staci's ever-present softness.

He looks like an entirely different man, here in this little cabin. No bags under his eyes because he sleeps regularly, mostly soundly beside Staci every night. No fresh wounds or marks besides ones _gifted_ in the heat of the moment, lovingly etched into the canvas of his body.

The light's gentle, forgiving on his ruined skin, and from this angle, half turned away, half turned toward Staci, they look faded, muted. Barely there, a distant memory.

Staci searches his eyes, so blue it's like falling through the sky. Wind wiping at his hair as he plunges back to earth, blue like a waterless sea all around him, and Staci knows the ground is rising up to meet him but cannot, will not, pull himself away from his descent long enough to deploy a parachute. Perfectly happy in his fucked up little freefall, he wants to prolong it as long as possible.

Keep falling, falling, falling until the impact shatters him irrevocably. Not enough horses and not enough men to ever put him back together again. Wrecked completely if, _when_ this thing goes south.

It's not like there'd be anything after this for him, anyway. Just the End. Whether he gets killed or Jacob gets tired of him, it all ends the same: curtains dropped and darkness all around.

“Hey, hey now. Where'd you go?” Jacob's rough hands on his cheeks, one sliding up against his temple and into his hair, the other down to cup his throat, urge his face over and up. Blue eyes so much closer, no space between them now. Fingertips gently scratching against his scalp, so domestic it makes Staci ache. “Somewhere better you'd rather be, huh?”

There's no heat in his words, though, but the gentlest, most reluctant worry snakes around them like vines. Jacob's emotions and motives might still prove plenty illusive, out of reach like smoke most of the time, but his eyes give him away. This close up, there's no hiding his concern, no hiding the way the crisp sky blue of his irises darkens like stormclouds moving across the horizon.

Staci can't stop his mouth from opening before his brain-to-mouth filter kicks in.

“Nowhere else. Just – just thinking about you. This. Us.” He makes an aborted sweep of the room with his right arm as the left comes up to grip Jacob's, clutching at his wrist. It's about anchoring himself as much as keeping Jacob here, keeping him close. Afraid the discussion will sever this moment between them clean down the center like a butcher's knife. Stain this beautiful, immaculate room with the bloody, tumultuous nature of their relationship, but still unable to stop himself.

Jacob makes a wary yet encouraging sound. There's tension in his arms, in his shoulders, but he neither drops his arms nor puts space between them. Takes a deep breath of the slightly earthy smelling steam building up in the room and _waits_ , eyes on Staci's lightly swollen pink lips.

“Say we take back Fall's End. Say – say we get all the Outposts back. What then, Jacob? Where is this going? Where is _this_ going?” He squeezes Jacob's wrist for emphasis as his mouth continues to vomit his unfiltered thoughts. “I'm not deluded – not, not really, I don't – I don't _know_. I don't know what I'm asking, I don't know what answer I want you to give me. I just...forget it.”

“What do you want me to say?” His voice is neither harsh nor warm, but almost blank. Void, his emotions walled off.

Jacob's eyes for once do not give him away, and a cold, sinking feeling gathers in Staci's guts. Tastes something like panic on the back of his tongue, sharp and metallic in the saliva suddenly flooding his mouth.

They're both coming down from their Bliss high, from their moment in the truck bed; fatigued and sated and the good kind of bone weary. Things had been soft and gentle. And there he goes, barreling forward without thinking. Destroying a calm that would have carried them through the entire night, and for what?

For what? Staci doesn't even _know_.

He shouldn't have opened his dumb fucking mouth. Should've just joked back and shuffled them into the shower stall.

“I don't know. I'm sorry,” he whispers back. Closes his eyes as the hand in his hair is slowly retracted. The hand on his throat is still there, but Staci's sure it's only because his own hand is around Jacob's wrist. Wonders how long it'll take Jacob to shake him off and draw back into himself.

They've been having a good time of it, so naturally they're due a step or two back.

At the bonfire, curled into one another.

In the truck bed, bodies locked together, as close as two people can get.

In the bathroom, Staci trembling, fearful and heartsick and dutifully awaiting punishment.

A displeased sound, humming in Jacob's throat. Staci's shoulders stiffen, tension radiating up his body, almost tingling beneath Jacob's hand. The corners of his eyes crinkle like he's wincing in anticipation of a blow, but he makes no move to do anything to escape or defend himself. Miserably resigned to his blunder and its consequences.

“I'm sorry, Jacob, s-sorry. Didn't think, please, I'm sorry.”

And it's all _wrong_ , but it's also Not. Can't be, not with the way things are between them. Jacob's not deluded, either, he knows how this thing between them started just as well as Staci. Where this thing has been, what it's been through. The bloody waters it crept out of.

Knee bruising concrete and Staci's tears. His Hope shattered on the floor, crunching beneath Jacob's boots as he locked the doors, ensuring their privacy. No resistance in his pliable body because Jacob had already drilled it out of him, starved it away along with everything else.

Jacob makes another sound, louder, and Staci flinches hard. The blood coursing through the veins in his neck rushes beneath Jacob's palm, thunderous like stampeding horses. Staci just as spooked, but there's nowhere to run, nowhere to go.

“Staci,” Jacob begins, licking his lips.

From this angle, the deer antlers on the wall look like they belong to Staci. Less stampeding horses, more a stag frozen in headlights. Too dazzled by the beautiful bright lights to acknowledge the danger hurtling towards him.

“Forget it. God, I'm sorry.” Barely a whisper. He's swaying a little, lightheaded from fear and love and too much, too much. Reaches forward without thinking to grab something, anything to steady himself, and just meets the warm, damp expanse of Jacob's abs. “ _Please._ ”

Staci begs pretty on his knees, waiting for cock. On his stomach with his ass in the air and the side of his face pushed into the mattress. Riding Jacob, his own ruddy, glistening erection bouncing between them.

_Please, Jacob, yours._

Him begging for mercy, for any sort of reprieve, had once been enticing to Jacob, too. Big doe eyes filled with tears that stubbornly refused to fall, even when his voice shook with misery. Lower lip quivering, chewed all to hell, but keeping Staci's cries of pain and frustration muted, like a secret in his throat. Whining in his sleep, his handcuff jingling against the metal of the radiator as he turned in discontentment, in torment. Not even safe in his dreams.

_Y-Yes, sir. S-Sorry, sir._

This, here, now—it's not as sweet as it had once been, the shattered pieces of Staci Pratt. Bittered because Jacob now knows what is truly sweet, and it's Staci's submission of a whole different sort.

It's Staci shaking and grinning as he comes, back arched and chest glistening. It's Staci in his bed in the morning, dark hair sticking up every which way and cold feet pressed to his skin. It's Staci at his desk, going over reports of his own, discussing the Training of others while Jacob looks on with Pride.

It's the hissing _psst_ of silenced bullets. It's the shrieking of a woman writhing in fire, Jacob's indiscretion forcibly corrected.

It's all a mess, and it's all on him. None of this would have started had Jacob been able to control himself, had he been able to leave well enough alone. Contented with thoughts of Pratt begging for his cock, with only his own hand furiously jerking himself off.

Staci would still fear him, hate him, and Jacob would be free of this weakness. Lust turned Love.

He almost wishes things had been Different, that he had met Staci before the helicopter crash. Things would never be truly easy between them even then, but their foundation could be sounder. Staci anticipating harsh words and thrown glasses, but not the back of Jacob's hand, the tip of his boot.

That's all on him, too. He's never been a particularly easy man to be around, even before the Project, and to be honest he's never really _tried._ The only people had had ever truly viewed as worth his time were his Family and his Brothers in Arms, and the rest were meaningless, frivolous castaways that sometimes had their uses.

But he wants to try. He's already let this thing grow far beyond what he should've, and it's his responsibility to take care of it, of Staci. Letting this thing proceed and grow without addressing it in the light of day only works up to a certain point, and they're drawing right up to it.

The only other thing he could do is end it. Set Staci free, either figuratively or literally—break his bonds or his neck.

He's a selfish man, though.

Even if that would be the best option for Staci, the thought of being without him, of being _alone_ again—Jacob couldn't fathom it.

So he's got to fix it. Only question is how? After so many years of his hands only breaking, his hands forcibly shaping, how does he teach them to heal?

Jacob opens his mouth to say something, but closes it immediately after. His emotions are still jumbled, a whirlwind in his skull, and he's just as likely to defuse this situation as he is to set it off.

He thinks of Staci in the truck bed, Staci in the clearing in the moonlight, and leans forward. Presses his lips to Staci's cheeks, his shuttered eyelids, his forehead. Peppers kisses across the expanse of his face as Staci had done to him, reverent and calming and soft. Continues even when Staci flinches hard again, a pitiful, wretched sound clawing out of his throat.

“Jacob—”

“Sh.”

“ _Jacob—_ ”

He says nothing as he begins pulling Staci's shirt up and over his head, taking care to feed his arms through the sleeves and not disturb his face as he removes the garment. Staci watches him as he undoes his jeans, as they pool around his feet. The uncertainty radiates off of him in waves, but he lets Jacob maneuver him until he's naked. Compliant, dutiful, even when so hopelessly confused.

Jacob makes short work of his own clothing, and then takes Staci by the hand and pulls him into the stall. The water has the distinct smell of well water, earthy and soft. It's cooled a little, and without looking Jacob reaches behind himself and moves the knob the tiniest amount.

When he's satisfied with the temperature again, he pulls Staci forward and under the water. He keeps him there long enough to get his hair thoroughly wet, pressed down heavy and saturated against his skull, before urging him backward again and around.

“Jacob?” he asks, only after a cap _snks!_ open and he feels hands in his hair. The scent of the shampoo perfuming around him is different from the type that Jacob favors, fragrant and bright, floral and clean. His head lulls as Jacob works it into his hair, fingers kneading and rubbing against his scalp. Massaging. He moans quietly and presses his head back into Jacob's hands a little harder, desperate for more.

“I won't promise you anything. Can't, not with the way things are. Have been. You're too smart to buy into that shit, anyway.” He hums as Staci inches backward into him, the wet skin of his back slipping against Jacob's own slicked chest. His fingers briefly curl into Staci's hair, stopping just before the pressure becomes painful.

“This is never going to be easy. Hell, or particularly Good, if I'm being honest. But I meant it, Staci. I'm Yours.” Staci leans back harder against him, like his knees are weak, and Jacob wraps one soapy arm around his waist while the other diligently continues its work in Staci's hair. “And I'm going to try to—try to be. Fuck. I'm gonna try, Staci.”

-

They head out for Faith's bunker shortly after the sun's risen.

Jacob had been right in assuming the clothing would fit him. The jeans he's wearing fit better than any pair he's worn since Before, and with a quick look between Jacob and himself, Staci quietly collects several other articles of clothing to bring along with them.

Plus the towels, which garners him a snort.

Jacob manages to find a shirt that fits lengthwise, but it's tight across his chest. Tighter than Eli Palmer's sweatshirt up in the Mountains. Dark, forest green, like the mat in the bathroom, and the color of it magnifies the clean shine of his auburn hair and beard.

It's distracting as all fuck.

“You're missing your mouth,” Jacob mocks, steering the wheel of the truck with one hand as he bites into a chunk of jerkied meat. One of the only things edible left in their little cottage, but it's better than nothing.

He had, indeed, been missing his mouth. Hit his cheek a couple of times as he watched Jacob's chest rise and fall beneath the green fabric of his shirt, practically painted onto his body.

“Not my fault,” Staci answers, and he bites into his own jerky with a derisive sound of his own. “Distracted by your slutty taste in clothing.”

Jacob is silent long enough for Staci to wonder if he's gone and misaligned things again, destroying what progress they made last night. Jacob's hands soft and wet on his skin, tenderly cleaning him. Being frank and open about what's going on between them. Telling Staci he'd try, for him, for Them. In the bed after, clean and warm and still damp, naked beneath someone else's sheets as they lazily bring each other off with their hands.

“ _Slutty taste in clothing_ ,” Jacob says, incredulous. Blue eyes wide and off the road which is thankfully straight and empty. “You're wearing clothes from the same closet, Peaches.” Still mocking, but playful. No hidden point, no blade in the dark. Just Jacob Seed amused. Flirting again.

 _Trying_.

Staci's chest feels like it's going to explode, like the butterflies in his stomach are going to carry the truck all the way to Faith's Gate.

“Yeah, but not obscenely. I can see your nipples, Seed. What would the Father say with you dressing like a Jezebel? I can practically hear stitching of your shirt screaming for mercy. We're in the Henbane, Jacob, not the Whitetails.”

Jacob's guffaw is undignified, and seems to startle him as much as Staci. They share a look before all semblance of control gives way, and suddenly they're both laughing, bordering on hysterics in the early morning sun. The laughter feels good, cleansing, like they're releasing the rest of the tension left over from last night.

When they're done, Jacob pops the rest of his jerky into his mouth and casually, wordlessly, slips his now free hand across the divider and lets it rest on Staci's thigh.

Staci, too, says nothing, as he presses his thighs together, clamped lightly on Jacob's fingers. His own hand moving down to blanket Jacob's own.

-

Faith meets them outside her bunker. She watches, amused, as they approach her—Staci's cheeks pinked and his eyes bright as he smiles at her; Jacob's eyes slightly averted, gazing just above her head, but his shoulders loose, easy, and his throat marked anew.

“Interesting night, boys?” she asks. Teeth sunk in her lower lip around a grin, head cocked to the side. “You left the celebration awfully fast. Cat got the canary _and_ something else, huh?”

“Faith,” Jacob deadpans. Shifts his weight and continues gazing over her head, expression slightly constipated. “Can we cut the crap?”

“Aw, but where's the fun in that!” she crows.

“He tends to kill fun, unfortunately,” Staci mutters, shrugging his shoulders.

Faith appraises him, her grin growing, growing, growing. Heart warming for them as Jacob quickly looks over at Staci and then back over Faith's head.

“I _guess_ if Big Brother wishes to proceed, we may proceed.” She theatrically bows and gestures them forward, into the bunker. She falls into step beside Staci, just barely resisting the urge to link their arms. When he looks at her, they share a private smile before turning back forward, but it's not as private as they'd think—Jacob tall enough and his peripheral great enough that he catches the little exchange.

He says nothing, and only just barely resists the temptation to slip his hand in Staci's own.

-

They're back in the Whitetails by midafternoon.

Jacob's Compound is aflutter, bodies moving quickly to and fro across the beaten expanse of dirt that is St. Francis's front loading area. A Family truck pulls up and is quickly loaded with weaponry, ammunition, and as many tubs of tightly sealed Bliss as will fit inside. Then it drives outside the gates and parks out front, only to be replaced by another, the process beginning again and again.

Jacob watches from the balcony, hands clasped behind his back. He can just make out Staci quietly instructing a few members of Jacob's Chosen from the doorway of their quarters.

It all fills his heart with Pride, his gut with anticipation—but it also has his nerves anxiously singing, awaiting something bad to happen. Bad things tend to happen in threes, after all, and they're at encounter three's door.

There's the Decoy Bunker, then the actual Wolf's Den, and now this, Fall's End.

They managed to wriggle out of Fate's clutches the first two times. Jacob only hopes they're prepared and lucky enough the third.

“Bliss rounds and nonlethal shots unless no other choice,” Staci carefully instructs. Jacob can practically hear the straightness of his spine in his words. Careful, controlled, in charge—for a moment, Jacob wishes he had known Staci as the deputy he once was. Wondered if he could command a presence then as he could now. “We aim to wound, not to kill. Some won't leave you any choice, but the goal is to capture, not kill.”

“Yes, Sir,” a Chosen woman answers, the reverence in her voice clear as a bell.

“The Bliss soaked arrows should be ready by now. Have the Hunters carefully set them out to dry so they can be safely used by sundown.”

“Yes, Sir,” a Chosen man this time, just as swayed.

“The Angels will guard the exits. Try and incapacitate your targets before they get to them, or it's all over for that wayward stray,” Faith says. Last time Jacob had turned around, she was sitting in her chair beside his desk. She sounds further away, probably by Staci's side.

“Yes, Ma'am.”

“Jacob?” Staci calls, and finally Jacob turns away from the courtyard to meet his gaze. “Do you have anything to add?”

Jacob leans against the patio door and chews his inner cheek for a moment. “Stay vigilant. With the downfall of the Resistance's leaders, the rest of them are scurrying like mice. They're going to be desperate—use their panic against them, but don't allow yourself to get complacent. Oftentimes when an animal is backed against a wall, it'll do almost anything to get itself out of a situation.”

-

They've blocked off all of the roads leaving Fall's End, effectively choking off travel in and out. There's a second checkpoint half a mile out to catch the stragglers, and so far they've captured four people that way, before the plan's even truly been set into motion.

There are Cult vans parked in the grasses behind him, a dozen of them on this side of town alone. Staci can just barely make out the dull shine of another set of them on the horizon, on the other side of Fall's End. Imagines he can see Faith, instructing the Faithful on her side on how and when to proceed.

Jacob's on the South exit, so the buildings of Fall's End block him from view. He imagines it, anyway—Jacob's red hair glowing in the simmering red of the lowering sun. His men watching, enthralled, as he paces in front of them, doling out orders.

The North exit is secured by John's highest ranking Faithful, a man Staci hadn't met before. He's got the same manic energy that he heard John had, but it seems a little better controlled. The men under his command were John's, too, the few survivors of the Junior Deputy cleaning house.

He's worried about them tossing the script the most. Eager to avenge their Herald, even at the expense of disappointing another. Two, even.

Staci's got the West exit. He's already given his instructions, the Faithful before him listening with the same devotion as those in Jacob's Compound hours ago. There's a few faces he recognizes—the man and the woman from the checkpoint when Staci was rushing towards Joseph; a few Faithful from the PIN-K0 station, who eye him with mirth and reverence both; one of the Chosen from earlier, when he was giving orders about mission protocol.

He gives the same instructions again, wanting to drill the mission's goal home.

“Capture, not kill. Unless you have no other choice, nonlethal shots,” he says, pacing before them as he imagined Jacob would. Shoulders back, head up, rifle draped over his chest. “Let the Bliss do its job. Incapacitate, make sure they're Blissed, and move on to the next target.”

They all nod at him, weapons clutched tightly. The few Hunters in his group have their bows already drawn and arrows nocked, glittering faintly with dried Bliss.

“And for God's sake, do not remove your gasmask unless you absolutely have to. You're no good to us if you're Blissed out of your skull.”

-

The first barrels roll in from each direction as soon as the sun's tucked itself away behind the mountains. They're mostly quiet, bouncing over asphalt and tightly packed dirt. Bliss sloshing within their green containers.

The Faithful pushing them station them in three spots per entrance: right in the center of town, where all of the streets meet, then a block or two back, and then finally on the outskirts.

Once they've settled their barrels, all of the Faithful but one per wave take their spots hidden among the town's buildings, their dark clothes and darker gasmasks blending into the stillness of the night.

Then the remaining Faithful carefully remove their Bliss lids and move _just_ far enough out of the way to tip their vats over.

Staci is near the side of the Spread Eagle when the air around them starts to cloud with swirling, glittering green. His gasmask is airtight but he can still taste the Bliss on his tongue, smell it in his nose. The phantom sense knowledge of what the Bliss is, what it can do, biting at his thoughts.

He pushes the memory away once the Bliss gets thick enough, and then all at once glass starts breaking.

Staci thrusts the butt of his rifle through one of the Spread Eagle's side windows. There's screaming already, the town's folk alerted to their presence building by building. His heart's thundering as he carefully continues around the back of the building to hit another window, to encourage the Bliss in deeper, further.

Surprisingly, he feels very little Guilt.

He keeps his thoughts blank as a towns-person bolts across the street before him, and with a steady hand he shoots the man in the meat of his thigh. The man collapses in pain, writhing and wailing, but the bloodflow from his wound looks like it was a clean shot. No major arteries, no bone.

A woman follows shortly after, screaming the man's name, but before Staci can take her down, too, she's crumbling to the ground. Blood blossoming on the back of her jean jacket, struck through the shoulder.

As she falls, Staci can see Jacob in the distance, lowering the muzzle of own rifle. Knows it's him by his stance, even that far away. Knows it by the moonlight reflecting off his dog tags, by the way he just _looks_ at Staci, even with his mask on.

Then Jacob's off, off towards the Church. Staci imagines he's whistling Only You to himself over the chaos as he goes.

With a group of Faithful, Staci moves to enter and clear the Spread Eagle.

It's been ages since he's been within its walls, but nothing's changed. Old, rickety stools and the smell of greasy food and beer pungent in the air. A dartboard in the corner, riddled with holes from years of games. A poster for the Testy Festy, and a Jukebox playing a 2000's hit Staci can't make out. On the tables, beer bottles overturned and food half eaten in the patrons' haste to run and duck for cover.

Hope County is small and Fall's End even smaller, so Staci doesn't expect many people within the bar. A Hunter with a wickedly fast pull shoots the chef, Casey Fixman, so low on his left shoulder Staci's worried she might have hit his heart.

He watches them floor the place, incredulous, his gun partially raised, before he sinks to the ground behind the small divider between the bar and the kitchen. Dimly Staci can hear his body _thud_ to he ground. He's groaning, though, so he's alive for now.

They incapacitate a man and a woman on the main floor before they make the push up the stairs. One of the Chosen from John's territory kicks the locked apartment door once, twice, thrice before it finally gives way, splintering the wood of the doorjam as it falls forward.

Staci takes point as they flood into the living quarters above the bar. The Bliss isn't as thick here even with shot out windows, but with the cross-breeze created by the open front door, it begins to billow in.

He instructs the Faithful to wait a few moments for the Bliss to permeate.

When the coughing starts, they proceed.

They find Mary May in her bedroom, after she blasts through the door with a shotgun. A member of the Faithful goes down, but Staci and there rest just step over the body and proceed in.

She manages to wound another before Staci clips her in the shoulder, and a Hunter pierces through her thigh with a Blissed arrow.

“You Peggie fucking bastards!” she sobs, writhing on the floor. The arrow is jostled by her shimmying, and she screams out in pain as it moves in the meat of her leg. Blood stains her jeans and the flannel of her button-up, and sweat pours down her face.

Her eyes are already hazy, blinking against the Bliss.

“Just fucking kill me,” she begs, “just fucking do it.”

Instead of answering, Staci thumps her one good time in the face with his rifle.

“Finish sweeping the upstairs, then take her down to the bar,” he instructs.

There's a window open along the far wall, pushed up and not shattered. Its white curtain billows in the breeze, shimmering with Bliss. Staci closes the gap between it and himself and peers out of it just in time to see a blur of movement hauling ass towards the residential area in the back.

“Someone got out,” he mumbles. “Clear the apartment, I'm going to head after them.”

He doesn't wait for an affirmative before he lifts himself up and out. The slant of the roof gives him little option in how to get down, so he lets gravity do its thing as he carefully slides forward. He hops down right before he's at the lip of the gutter, the height enough to make his ankles sting as they impact the ground, but not enough to break anything.

Then he's off towards the houses, bobbing and weaving between the buildings, trading in a little of his care for speed. Shrouded in glimmering, pungent Bliss.

He's not worried about the person getting away, but now that he's in the heat of the moment—he's afraid he's going to run out of targets. His blood's on fire, like his mask has a leak and he's been inhaling the Bliss in the thick of it. Dizzy with how exhilarated he is, with how exciting this all is.

He clears two houses without a sign of his wayward towns-person. There are bodies in the street, alive he hopes, and he takes care to avoid them in case they're _too_ alive and alert his latest mouse that he's out and on the prowl.

In the third, he finds an old man sitting quietly in his easy chair. He looks up as soon as Staci enters and blasts a hole clean through his temple, the gun still smoking as it falls. The dingy, dirty walls behind him, stained with years of smoking indoors, are wet with it, brain tissue and blood drip drip dripping towards the carpet.

Diligently he clears the house. He finds a newspaper clipping of an obituary dated three months ago and nothing else.

MRS. DOLORES N. WAYWORTH, 66

Preceded by TIMOTHY E. WAYWORTH, 48, CECELIA A. WAYWORTH, 43, and LERANE K. WAYWORTH, 40.

Survived by her loving husband of 47 years, MR. ARCHIBALD L. WAYWORTH, 69.

He slowly closes the door to the Wayworth's empty home, and presses on.

The fourth home is a disaster already. Broken windows from the beginning of the attack, door kicked in. It looks like it's already been cleared, but Staci goes inside, anyway. It'll be the last house he checks.

Then he'll leave his lost mouse for the Angels.

The entire inside of the house has been destroyed. The couch is gutted, bleeding stuffing everywhere. The television's been ripped from the wall and then thrown into a neighboring, load-bearing one. The roof sags there precariously, and Staci makes a mental note to keep this clearing fast.

Shattered glass, picture frames and the television screen and formally fine china, glitter in the Bliss dancing in and out of the building. Crunching beneath his boots as he walks.

In a child's bedroom, he hears creaking. A limb connecting with a wall and a sound of pain almost immediately silenced, but not quickly enough. He straightens his back and steadies his grip on his rifle before inching into the room, hugging the wall as closely as he can.

He walks across an abandoned, soiled child's daybed and then he's at the closet.

“Come out,” he calls, muzzle pressed against the slats of the door. Loud enough that even through his mask and over the chaos he should be heard.

“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!” he can hear from within, a woman's voice frantic and frayed.

“I'm not going to ask again,” he says, knocking his muzzle against the door. “Come out.”

The door _squeeeeals_ as it's pushed to the side, and with her hands up, Joey Hudson exits the closet.

She's got tears on her face and hatred in her haunted, hunted wet eyes, but she comes out all the same.

Though he knew the Probie had freed her when she killed John, seeing Hudson mostly hale and whole before him rips into wounds he hasn't addressed in ages. Stings like salt's been shoved into each and every one of them, and they scream at him as he's reminded of the fact that she was freed and not him.

Never first, not in his Old Life, never never never. His hands shaking around the stock of his gun, finger carefully away from the trigger in case he does something rash like start screaming.

It takes him a few breaths to calm down. Joey eyes him warily the entire time, staring bullets into his face, hunting for his eyes through thick, darkened plastic. She doesn't recognize him, and it's better this way.

Better she thinks him dead. The old Staci Pratt is, anyway.

In the end, he lucked out. He's got Jacob, and he's not the one staring down the barrel of an AR-C with his hands up.

“Sit down,” Staci instructs, and she only wishes death on him a little when he pushes her back onto the destroyed daybed, making her comply.

Like Mary May, she urges him to kill her. Her eyes are wild, flitting around Staci's mask, hoping to connect to some human part of him.

“Kill me. I-I can't go back. I _won't_ go back,” she says, and Staci's reminded of his acting in the Wolf's Den. Eli's sad eyes on him, his devastated understanding.

He thinks of her Before, her long brown hair braided over her shoulder. Patriotic half-sleeve forearm tattoo, in honor of her service in the Navy and that of practically every Hudson before her. Her laughter, half giggle half snort, as they patrolled the surrounding counties, desperate for anything to do. A cup of coffee pushed into his open hand, his order wrong _again_ but he can't fault her for it; drinks the too sweet, blonde swill she gives him with something akin to a smile. Her at his side at his Abuelo's funeral, steadfast and supportive at his side.

Proud and beautiful and his _friend_.

He might have lucked out, but if Joey Hudson is caught again it's either a bullet from Jacob or Bliss-induced mania from Faith, side by side with the Junior Deputy.

The guilt hits him full force as he watches her watch him. He can still hear the others raiding Fall's End in the distance, gunfire and screaming and what he believes is a building somewhere burning.

“You need to leave,” Staci breathes, and it's barely audible over his mask.

He will not take it off, though. Cannot.

When she doesn't move, he gestures at her with the barrel of his gun. “ _Go_ ,” he urges, “but watch the roads. There's – there's roadblocks. Angels. You need to go and go now, Hudson.”

At the mentioning of her name, she curls forward, trying desperately to make out who he is. The mask covers all of his face and the clothes he's got on are nothing like his civvies from Before.

He hopes it's enough to keep her from connecting the dots. With all of the chaos, with Faithful from all three siblings' regions, he hopes she never puts the pieces together.

He hopes that she thinks he's dead. It's easier that way.

“Why—”

“Fucking _go_ , are you deaf? Go!”

She jumps, scrabbling over the daybed and towards the door, never showing him her back. Her eyes are dry now but they're growing hazy, her pupils dilating with the Bliss so thick in the air.

“Try to run downwind, there's a lot of Bliss in the air,” he tells her, voice sad. The muzzle of his rifle dropped, his shoulders drooped. “Run to a lake or something, g-get the Bliss off. Go, Hudson, before it's too late.”

-

At the end of their raid, they've only counted ten dead, including Mr. Wayworth and the Faithful in the Spread Eagle.

Fall's End is nearly destroyed, though. The convenience store across the street has been made a hundred times more convenient with the removal of its entire front wall. There are cars on fire, crackling and popping as their flames cast shadows into the steadily clearing haze of Bliss.

The fire Staci had heard with Hudson was Pastor Jerome's church. He doesn't know whether Jeffries was taken alive or dead before the fire. Doesn't know which fate he'd prefer for the man. Alive but captured, dead yet free. Thinks of the man coming out to his Abuela's apartment to preach when she was too weak to go to him or another Catholic church, and swallows hard.

The run in with Hudson has his nerves fried and exposed. The guilt seeps into his body, like there's a leak in his mask, and he struggles against the heaviness of it as he watches the Faithful shepherd Blissed out and passed out civilians into Cult vans for conversion.

Wonders what's become of who he was before he resolutely stops that line of thought.

He is who he is, now. What this town has made him.

He doesn't startle when Jacob claps his hand down on his shoulder. Doesn't think he could move all that quickly under the weight of his guilt, thick and heavy like liquid cement.

“You did well.” Staci can just make it out through his gasmask, and most of the guilt is dispersed by the white hot pleasure of Jacob's proud remark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OK, i think honestly one more chapter?? like seriously this time, one more. i think. :-|


	13. Chapter 13

Less townspeople go back to Jacob's Compound than Staci had expected.

There's almost two dozen vans, each with two or three townspeople incapacitated inside. Small groups of people, easier to maintain in case anything goes wrong.

Staci watches from his spot beside the grill of Jacob's Jeep as about half of them clunk down Fall's End's main road and head east for Faith's Bunker. He can't help but feel a little nauseated thinking about all the new potential Angels she might make, but he hopes enough of them break under her tutelage quickly and efficiently before complete thought eradication is enacted.

A little more than a fourth of the vans head towards Jacob's region, the strong and the able bodied bound and gagged. Staci watches them go, too, but feels less bad about them.

The Strong will survive and the Weak...the Strong will use them like rungs of a ladder to proceed ever upward. Staci will be there to help, in any case. To assess what the cat's drug in and help Jacob weed out the rabble.

The remaining vans head in a different direction than the previous, and Staci squints into the darkness after their headlights, racking his brain for where they could be heading.

John's Compound, maybe? The Rookie had destroyed John's bunker after she had killed John, but his Lodge still stood. There was no Herald in Holland Valley to do any heralding, though—John's highest ranking Faithful might have been here with them tonight, but Staci would've heard the scuttlebutt among Jacob's Faithful if Joseph was promoting someone into the vacant spot John had left behind.

Maybe they're going to Joseph's? His Compound isn't really the prisoner breaking type, though the number of townspeople heading towards destinations unknown is the smallest of the group of three. Without John there, perhaps Joseph has to pick up the slack?

Staci's still thinking it over when Jacob returns to him. He's got his gasmask slung over one shoulder and his rifle draped over the other. There are little marks on his face from where the gasmask was a touch too snug, creating strange new creases and dips in his damaged skin.

There's blood spatter on the front of his fatigues, splashing up the side of his right arm. Staining dark and wet on his lower belly. Staci's heart thuds heavily in his chest as he assesses Jacob for damage, and after several once-overs he exhales a shuddering breath when he determines none of the blood is Jacob's own.

He comes to a stop pressed gently against Staci, Staci's right side a long, warm line down the front of Jacob's body. The smell of clean sweat, blood, gunsmoke and Bliss comes off him in waves, stronger than the floral scent of the shampoo they had used in the cabin.

More natural on Jacob, anyway.

“Where is that last group of townspeople going?” Staci asks, turning to look in the direction in which they had driven. Even with the aid of a flickering lightpost, he can make out dark tree canopies and little else.

Jacob hums. Draws his touch down the exposed skin of Staci's neck, smiling softly as Staci shudders and returns his gaze to Jacob. “That's for me to know, and for you to find out in due time, Peaches.”

Staci turns into him, so they're mostly chest to chest. The cool metal of the Jeep's grill bites through the denim covering his legs, makes him shiver with it. It's not yet cold enough to see his breath, but it's nearly November, Staci realizes. Snow will be moving into the area soon, and while Staci is, unfortunately, intimately familiar with Montana winters, he's never weathered one high in the mountains.

He takes a second to give thanks to God for no longer being locked away in a cage in the courtyard of St. Francis's. He knows the others, especially these new ones, will not be nearly as lucky as he's been.

Hopefully the exposure will break them in faster, if nothing else.

“In due time,” Jacob repeats, carding his fingers through Staci's hair. The back of his skull fits securely in the seat of Jacob's palm. He gingerly urges him forward and presses his lips chastely to Staci's. The warmth of it has Staci's cheeks stinging, his eyes lowered and his lips quirking of their own accord when Jacob pulls away. “I promise.”

-

They're nearly back at St. Francis's when the Resistance's broadcast crackles to life.

It had been silent since their escape, since Staci quietly took out Eli and Tammy both. There'd been no music, no cleverly coded messages, no taunts – nothing, until now.

Jacob leans hard against the steering wheel and turns up the volume of the radio. It's been routine for him to check their broadcast, trying to ascertain whether or not the Resistance has truly caved in on itself or if it's beginning to heal.

He's holding his breath when the static finally, _finally_ gives way to words.

“Fall's End has fallen. All Whitetails return to the Grove.”

Just two sentences, delivered by a hollow male voice. Miserable, aching, like they'd been halved. Then it dies again, filling the cab of their truck with quiet static once more.

Jacob flicks off the radio and eases back into his seat. It's not a voice he immediately recognizes, but all of the voices Jacob paid attention to among the Resistance's ranks were either killed by Staci or collected from Fall's End for conversion.

The dead, empty cadence of it doesn't ring any bells for Staci, either, but as Jacob turns the station back to songs sung by the Family, as he then gingerly, wordlessly slides his hand across the center of the cab and between Staci's warm thighs, he hopes it's not the boy with the braids.

“The Grove, huh,” Jacob rumbles, lips quirking as he eases the truck around a sharp bend. “Sounds like fun.”

Staci says nothing, just clenches his thighs around Jacob's hand, his own hand wrapped around Jacob's wrist, and offers him a small smile when their gazes meet.

-

Snow moves into the Whitetails two weeks later, blanketing the courtyard of St. Francis's. Every few hours, under the watchful eyes of the Faithful, their new captives shovel out the hospital's driveway and unloading bays.

It's hard, strenuous work, but it's still easier than the Training. A reprieve, even. The cold, biting air pleasantly numbing their aching, wounded bodies.

Staci joins them several times, bundled up in a winter coat Jacob had thrown at him a few days prior without a word. The mindless manual labor allows his mind to go blank, narrows his world to just his panting breath and the pleasant burn in his forearms, his biceps.

The first time he takes a shovel from the Faithful, a few of their captives shuffle backwards, eyes down and hands trembling. He doesn't try to calm them, doesn't try to earn their trust with false, sugary words. He merely rolls their fear around in his mouth and thrusts his shovel into the snow, puts his back into it as he scoops and heaves it out of the way.

It's just him shoveling by himself for a few long, tense moments, but eventually they fall into step beside him.

Thrust, heft, heave, over and over until the line of bruised men and women have cleared the dirt driveway connecting the Compound to the main road. They stand as a group at the end of the driveway and collect their breath, several of their party longingly eyeing the landscape before them.

Staci thrusts his shovel into the ground and turns to look at his prisoners— _his_ more often than not, Jacob having stepped largely back to allow Staci to run much of the Training so he could pursue other things. He hasn't changed the Training a whole lot, though he leaves any and all things to do with the Box to Jacob and Jacob alone.

He has added more incentive, more softness, though. He rewards and pacifies more than Jacob had, coaxing submission rather than beating it out. More praise and soft touches, creature comforts like better food and bedding.

You catch more flies with honey, after all.

All but one of their newest captives have progressed from the Pens and into St. Francis's proper. A cell is still a cell, but there's no _snow_ inside, and the escape from the elements and into the heated rooms of the hospital has engendered them to the Family's cause more than any mindless beating ever could.

“Don't bother,” Staci tells them simply, leaning against his shovel. He, too, gazes out into the distance, at snow covered pines and the breathtaking rises in the earth. It's so calm and clean out here, removed from the lingering misery that hangs in the courtyard like a fog. “There's nothing out here for you but Him, but Us. Your Family. The sooner you realize that, the easier it'll be.”

Their faces are solemn and miserable as he turns to face them. Bruised and splashed with red-pink from the chill, from exertion. He recognizes most of the faces spread out around him from his life Before, neighbors and former classmates. A few people he's ticketed or detained for innocent things, like drunk and disorderly near the Spread Eagle or doing thirty-five in a twenty-five.

“I was you once. Worse than you, maybe. It's not all bad here.” Staci licks his lips and offers them a small smile. Doesn't think of the Song, of his Hope dwindling away like sand falling in an hourglass. Focuses on the memory of Jacob's body on his, of Joseph's hand kneading his shoulders, of Faith's arm linked in his own. “Once you let Them in, there's nothing else. It's not so bad, I promise.”

“Deputy Pratt,” one of the women begins.

“Deputy Pratt is dead,” Staci quietly says. He takes a deep, shuddering breath and releases it once he's looking at the mountains again. Squints his eyes against the bright light of day, against the crisp almost harsh whiteness of the snowclouds hanging in the sky, and tries to see if he can make out where the Wolf's Den is, was. “Pratt will do just fine.”

When she doesn't follow up with anything more, Staci shakes himself out of his thoughts and yanks his shovel from the ground. It's still snowing but lighter now, and while they may need to return in a few hours to redo their work, they're done for now.

“Good work. You all deserve something nice, hm? How about venison? You've all got to keep up your strength, it's gonna be a long winter.”

-

The winter slows down the Compound even more than the rain.

They keep the roads mostly clear, but they seldom get visitors. Without the Junior Deputy running around wreaking havoc, things seem to even out. Their Outposts maintain their supplies instead of having them looted or destroyed, and with every passing day they lose less and less of the Faithful to the remaining pockets of the Resistance.

It's bizarrely peaceful, like the Grimm version of a winter wonderland.

With Jacob's partial withdraw from the Training, he's got time to devote to figuring out just exactly what and where the Grove is. He's got even less to go on than he had had with the Wolf's Den, but having this to focus on takes his mind off of other things.

 _Joseph_ things, mainly, like how enough is never enough for him. Always take take taking, because what's theirs is the Father's—what's _Jacob's_ is the Father's.

He wants to make Staci a Herald, and wants it bad. Bad enough to keep in near constant contact with the Compound, calling whenever the mood strikes. Jacob's waiting for him to materialize one day in the courtyard, genial smile and Sunday best to come whisk Staci away, _This is the will of God, Brother. We need a Herald in Holland Valley, and I do believe you have created one in Staci Pratt._

Jacob can't say he isn't _proud_ , isn't fucking elated that his Staci, His, His His His, has become so Strong that his prowess has become a beacon.

But. _But_.

He wishes they would all just admire from afar. Keep their grubby fucking hands to themselves and let him keep this one thing.

The thought of losing Staci to the Family leaves a sour taste in Jacob's mouth, sharp and acrid like vomit. Jacob hasn't, doesn't ask for much from Joseph, from Eden's Gate, but he shouldn't have to ask for this—for himself to be allowed this one thing, this one person, without having to worry that it's going to be ripped away to serve the greater good.

Fuck the greater good, frankly.

 _His, Jacob Jacob Jacob's_. Not stolen away from him like everything else he's ever loved—John and Joseph when they were children; the military when he was adult.

His.

The corded phone rattles in its cradle as Jacob hangs it up for what feels like the millionth time this week. Joseph again, _Is Staci busy this time, too, Brother? Need I come visit in person?_ Jacob's managed to keep him at bay for now, nearly December, but even over the phone he can tell that Joseph's patience is running thin.

The only thing keeping Joseph away is the snow, and even that won't keep him for long.

He runs his hands through his hair as he stands from his desk, drags them over the smooth, freshly shaved sides of his skull. He can still feel the ghost of the razor dragging over his scalp, Staci's amused rumbling enveloping him from behind.

If Joseph gets his way, he'd have to go to Holland fucking Valley for that to happen again.

He'd have to go to Holland Valley for a lot of things.

He's managed to keep most of this from Staci, but it's added strain to their relationship. Joseph's prying, Joseph's demands, it's got Jacob wildly oscillating between livid and rattlingly empty, between clingy and wholly adverse to anyone's presence, even Staci's.

Hot, cold, hot, cold.

Jacob's not exactly sure why he's going through so much trouble to keep it from the light of day. Staci is _his_ , has said as much over and over, but the thought of losing him gnaws away at Jacob all the same. Has him wondering if his fucked up interpretation of love will be enough when offered power and Freedom.

“Fuck,” Jacob huffs to himself, dragging his hands down his face.

-

Joseph calls on the tenth day of December to tell Jacob he's less than an hour away from St. Francis's. _Less than an hour_ is intentionally vague, and Jacob assumes Joseph really means _less than twenty minutes_.

Jacob makes stilted conversation as his hands shake. He motions for the nearest Chosen and pantomimes writing to her, watches her scurry off towards a nearby desk to rifle through its drawers. He can just make out her quiet, triumphant _a-ha!_ over the sounds of Joseph's truck tires crunching through packed snow, over the buzzing rush of blood thundering through his ears.

“I hope the roads are in better condition near you, this is horrible,” Joseph idly muses, tiny and far away in Jacob's ear.

Jacob takes the offered paper and pen, pressing the sheet against the wall and beginning to write while his Chosen looks over his shoulder.

“The driveway's been cleared. Courtyard, too, but we haven't sent the Faithful out further than that. Snow helps with hunting, though. Easier to track in it,” Jacob answers as he writes, his brain already weaving together an excuse to get Staci outside of the Compound.

_GET PRATT AND A HUNTING PARTY TOGETHER. TELL HIM IT'S PART OF THE NEW RECRUIT'S TRAINING AND THAT THEIR TASK IS TO PROVIDE—DO NOT TELL HIM ABOUT THE PHONE CALL._

She looks confused but doesn't challenge him, just nods and heads out the main door.

Jacob sits back in his chair and groans softly.

“Something wrong, Brother?” Joseph asks. Even over the amused, pleasant tone he's using, Jacob can hear an undercurrent of annoyance, the Father irritated that his sway isn't strong enough for Jacob to outright cave. Pissed that he has to drive all this way out to get his way when everyone else submits with little provocation.

Jacob will not, cannot submit without a fight. Not with this, not with Staci. “Nothing, Brother. It's nothing.”

Joseph hums into his cell phone. If Jacob concentrates, he can hear the snowchains on his tires clicking against the asphalt as Joseph drives. “Is Staci around this time, or otherwise occupied?”

“Out hunting, actually. Part of the new Training he's implemented.” Jacob shrugs his shoulders and hopes his smugness doesn't carry over the line.

“Hm. Guess I'll have to wait around until he comes back, won't I?” The question wipes the smugness right off Jacob's face, and from Joseph's amused, tinkling laugh, Jacob's pretty sure Joseph knows it. “This is God's will, Jacob. Surely you've realized this by now.”

“God's will, sure. Yeah, Joe. Whatever you say.”

They make small talk as the distance between them is eaten up, the conversation mostly carried by Joseph. Jacob barely participates, humming an affirmative here and grunting a negative there.

It's not a hardship for him, Joseph enjoying the sound of his own voice as much as he does.

“I'm almost at the turn, I'll see you in but a few moments,” Joseph says.

“See you,” Jacob mumbles, standing. He's hanging up while Joseph is saying something, and while not the _smartest_ idea he's ever had, Jacob has to make sure Staci and the Faithful have left already. He'll deal with whatever passive aggressive shit the Father throws at him later for his insolence.

The sound of his boots clomping down the stairs is muted in his ears, drowned out by the ever-pressing rush of blood pounding in his skull that he gets whenever Joseph calls and _meddles_. He focuses on it, on its oddly calming dull buzz, soothing like white noise, as he clears the last three steps of the stairwell at once and throws himself out into the landing of the main floor.

The Courtyard is empty save one prisoner curled up into a tight ball in a distant cell. Jacob's pretty sure he's dead, long dead, but his presence serves as a not-so-gentle reminder to their newest additions that death is never too far away in the Whitetails

The cold keeps him from stinking up the place, at any rate. He can stay there until Spring for all Jacob gives a shit.

With his hands shoved into the pockets of his too-thin fatigue jacket, Jacob watches as a Family truck emerges onto the driveway a distance away.

He pulls his radio off its clip on the side of his jeans and presses the cold metal to his lips, fingers pressing hard against the broadcast button. “You underway yet, Peaches?”

There's silence for a few moments, Joseph looming closer and closer with every passing second, but then the walkie comes to life in Jacob's grip.

“Yeah, yeah. Cold as hell out here,” Staci's gripes, moving ever forward with snow up to his knees.

Just the dulcet tones of his voice has a little of the tension in Jacob's spine easing. He almost wishes Staci were still in the Compound so he could leech a little more comfort from him, but the distance is for the best. “It _is_ wintertime.”

There's a snort when the walkie comes to life again. “Are we hunting anything particular?”

“No, just think _lots_. Figure we'll have something hardy, bulk up the Family. We're supposed to get more snow this weekend and it'd be a good idea to stock up our reserves.” Jacob can make out the sound of snowchains eating through the two or three inches built up on the dirt driveway.

He's making his way towards the gate to open it for Joseph when Staci speaks again. “Lots, okay. Vague, but okay. Just meat or furs too?”

“Surprise me. And be careful,” Jacob breathes. “It goes without saying that if you get hurt or worse out there, it's gonna be a shitshow for everyone involved.”

The metal shrieks as he pulls it open, having to put his back into it to open it one-handed with the snow impeding the gate's progress.

Staci's voice is warm, touched when he says back, “Will do, Jacob. See you in a few hours.”

Jacob contemplates how _soft_ he's getting as Joseph eases his truck into the courtyard, parking it where their loading and unloading zone is. He doesn't mind it, not really, not when the trade in is Staci warm in his bed and vicious in his defense of Jacob. It's a fairly even trade, all things considered.

He's placing the walkie back on his belt, volume turned down low, when Joseph hops out of the truck and closes his door. He's bundled up tightly, almost comically, puffy parka and at least three pairs of pants tucked into thick winter boots.

Jacob's reminded of how much John hated the winter, hated being _cold_ , and smiles sadly.

“Brother,” Joseph calls. When they're standing before one another, Joseph grips his bicep and encourages their foreheads to meet. His skin is warm from the truck's heating, feels good against Jacob's wind chapped skin. “It's been too long. Hearing your voice pales in comparison to your company.”

They share the same breath for a moment, Jacob waiting for Joseph to break away first. He returns Joseph's smile though he has to force his lips into cooperation. Hopes his expression doesn't look as pained and uncomfortable as the knotting in his guts.

“It's wintertime in the mountains, Joe. Sometimes my voice is all you're going to get.” Jacob falls into step beside Joseph as he begins towards the hospital, eager to get out of the elements.

They're climbing the same set of stairs Jacob had just thundered down when Joseph casually calls over his shoulder, “Was that Staci you were speaking with?”

Jacob hums quietly in affirmation. “Just checking in on his progress.”

The blonde bun on the back of his head bounces as he shakes his head, playing at fond disbelief. “What a strange time to hunt,” Joseph muses, pushing open the door to Jacob's quarters. It's not as barren as the last time he's been in here—more quarters now than war room. Lived in, _slept_ in.

There's a new chalkboard dragged in and tucked to the side with scribble Joseph doesn't recognize. Must be Staci's, slanted and half-cursive and messy, nothing like the tight block letters his brother pens. Jacob's wall shrine to the Wolf's Den has been taken down and replaced with new handwritten notes and photographs with question marks around them. Above it all, a notecard says THE GROVE in Jacob's bold script.

Clothes draped over chairs and spilling out of dresser drawers, most looking entirely too small for Jacob's frame. Two sets of boots by the door, dirty dishes near Jacob's desk, pushed to the side.

A larger bed dragged into the room, taking over the spot of the old makeshift hospital bed that Jacob had been using. Its sheets are rumpled, unmade. On the ground beside the leg of the bed sits a bottle of used lubricant, tucked beside a discarded t-shirt.

It smells different in here, too. Like Jacob and Staci's scents have begun to merge, musky and spicy.

“A man's gotta eat even with snow up to his nuts,” Jacob mutters. He's intentionally crude because he knows Joseph won't appreciate it. He smirks when he perches on the side of his desk and see Joseph wrinkling his nose.

Joseph casually removes a pile of clothes out of the chair next to Jacob's knee and sits down. Sets them on Jacob's cluttered desk with a huff and a roll of his eyes. He crosses his legs at the ankle and leans back, hands clasped in his lap.

“Sorry about the mess.” He's not. Typically Jacob is neater than this, efficient and streamlined, but Staci is messy, almost chaotic in nature. Jacob's gotten used to clothes being everywhere, Staci's and his own. Seeing all of their stuff together makes his gut go hot, has his heart thumping heavily in his chest. Some primal instinct inside him preening at how _right_ their sharing of space is.

“Looks like Deputy Pratt has made himself at home.” The smile on Joseph's face is bemused, but his blue eyes have a hard glint in them. Sharp, dissecting. It's a feat not to squirm under them as Joseph openly takes in the room, smile dropping minutely, lips pursing.

“Looks like.” It _is_ his home, here with Jacob. Not in Holland Valley, not in that big empty ranch John left behind. “Look, Joe—”

“Have you told him about my proposition?” His eyes are back on Jacob, head tilted as he watches his older brother look away, jaw tensed. “Ah, I see. Any particular reason?”

“I don't think he's ready yet,” Jacob quietly says. “He needs more time, he—”

“You mean _you_ need more time. It's mighty selfish of you to hold Staci Pratt back from his destiny, Jacob. Greedy, even.” The Father's face is calm and passive as he watches Jacob fly off the desk, heading over toward the patio door. He watches his brother cross his arms behind his back and take a series of deep breaths, quietly amused that Jacob would give him his back at a moment like this.

Joseph's the biggest predator in the County now, though Jacob doesn't have too much to fear from him.

Jacob studies the distant mountains, wondering where among them Staci and his party are. His fingers itch to grab his walkie and call for them again just to hear his voice. “We can at least wait until the new Gate is ready. We can—”

“You're only delaying the inevitable. This is a _good thing_ , Jacob, for our Family and our cause. For Staci. You cannot keep him cooped up here forever, the flock wants to meet him.” Joseph watches Jacob's hands squeeze each other behind his back, the points of his scarred knuckles slowly blanching white.

“That can wait until the thaw, Joe. He's not going anywhere,” Jacob says, and he means it. He's _not_ going anywhere, if Jacob can help it. Unfortunately, his twisting gut tells him he probably can't. He'll cave to Joseph like he always does, teeth clamped in his lower lip so hard blood paints his tongue red.

He doesn't want to think about what'll happen when Staci's inevitably pried away from him. He's noticed a change within himself since things have evened out between them, since their conversation in that cabin bathroom. Slower to truly anger, his emotions stabilized. Less likely to result to extreme violence, more likely to let his guard down.

His men have noticed it, too. They watch them sometimes, their Herald and his paramour, walking and working together, making eyes at one another when they think no one is looking. Jacob will occasionally look up and met one of his Chosen's eyes and find genuine warmth there mixed in with their respect.

And then, as always, Joseph. Sticking entitled hands into every available cookie jar,  _It's the will of God, Jacob._ Throwing Jacob's emotions into a tailspin until Joseph backs off.

“I'm not trying to take him away, Jacob, just to elevate him. You do believe me, right?” Joseph's at his back, his warm, delicate fingers splayed on Jacob's shoulder. He squeezes, fingertips pressed into the skin just above Jacob's clothed collarbone.

The mental image of Joseph pressed too close to Staci flashes through Jacob's mind. The smell of Joseph's soap and shampoo on Staci's body filling his senses like it had the first time, in his tiny makeshift hospital room in Joseph's Compound.

Joseph's big, watery blue eyes following Staci around the room, indecipherable behind sulfur yellow lenses.

Does he believe him?

“I believe you,” Jacob breathes. Glad that his face is turned away because he's not truly sure he does. He loves his Brother, truly he does, but Joseph can justify nearly anything by saying God and the Voice told him this, or urged him to do that.

“You should be proud—”

“I _am_ proud—”

“Then why all of this resistance? He'll just be a little ways away, not oceans. Easily navigable, Jacob, I swear.” Joseph grips his forearm and gently pulls him around to face him. The snow boots Joseph has on closes a little bit of the height gap between them, and he uses the new advantage to encourage eye contact.

Jacob's eyes are so blue and conflicted searching Joseph's, wounded but nearly conceding defeat. More afraid than Joseph's ever seen them.

“I just need a little longer, Joe. I promise I'll tell him soon.” Jacob exhales, shuddering, and breaks their eye contact. He just barely manages to hide the tremor in his hand as he scrubs at his face. Digs his heel into his eye socket until he sees colors, any color other than the sharp blue of Joseph's piercing eyes.

“You have until the new year, Jacob,” he says quietly. When Jacob nods, Joseph squeezes his arm. “I mean it when I say I'm not taking him away. This is _good_ , Jacob, for the Family. For Staci. Must he always be locked away in your hospital?”

Anger spikes in Jacob's gut. He pulls himself away again, turning to look back out the glass doors. Wonders how long it would take him to reach Staci's hunting party if he radioed them now and set off.

He wants Joseph to leave. Wants him to go back to his own territory and mind his own God damn business. But it's all the Father's business, every single little thing any of the Family does in Hope County.

“Is _that_ where your true problem lies? You think that if he goes, he'll never come back.” It's all so obvious now, the root of his brother's discomfort. A thorn stuck in a wolf's paw, wedged deep into the meat.

“Joe,” Jacob warns. His heart's beating a feverish staccato against his ribs. He can hear it over the buzzing in his ears. He wonders if Joseph can hear it, too, _thud thud thud thud_. Like a battering ram about to split his chest open.

“You're worried he'll find someone new or discover he doesn't actually want you when he's got the option to say no.” Joseph's expecting Jacob to whip back around at the last part of the sentence, and if he were anyone else he'd be cowed by the fury in Jacob's eyes. Frantic, feverish anger, twinged with guilt. As it stands, Joseph doesn't budge an inch, even with Jacob's chest heavily rising and falling against his own.

Jacob wants to deny it. The words are on the tip of his tongue, just waiting to be breathed alive. But there's no lie in Joseph's words. Even Jacob's fervent denial couldn't make them any less true.

“Joe,” he repeats, the name drenched in misery.

Joseph takes pity on him and gingerly places his hand on the side of Jacob's face. The scars on his cheeks, on his temple, are a strange texture beneath Joseph's palms. He drags his fingertips down the side of his face, watching as Jacob shivers, and then urges their foreheads to meet again.

-

The hunting party returns late in the night, fifteen minutes shy of two o'clock in the morning.

Staci's a little surprised Jacob isn't in the courtyard to meet them, but this entire expedition had been a surprise. Sent off into the wilderness with barely a word, just Staci and a decent sized group of Faithful. Even some not yet Faithful, the most promising of their recent recruits brought along as well.

It had been an interesting trek, the group of them compartmentalizing the miserable conditions with quiet songs and camaraderie. Free of the hospital's walls and fencing, the soon to be Faithful seemed to forget that they've been forced to assimilate or die. Staci watched as the tension slowly bled out of them, as they willingly took part in song and jokes with Staci and the other Chosen, and with a small smile he made a mental note to thank Jacob for this random, spur of the moment idea.

They'd been out there for hours without finding anything but more snow and small, easily killed hares, but as the sun began to set the reluctant creatures of the mountains came out. They'd spotted deer first, a small cluster of them nibbling at the sparse expanse of grass not covered in snow.

They had all gone silent and low as Staci had indicated which deer was his, the stag of the group. Hunting wasn't something that Staci had much experience with, but he was good with a rifle, better now for all the Training. His bullet tore through the air to lodge cleanly in the skull of his chosen deer, and then the rest dropped like flies, one then two then three.

After that, kills in tow, they had stumbled upon a lone moose most of the way down the mountain. That kill had required more coordination, a collective joint effort—they needed backup prepared in case the two original shots to the beast's skull didn't do their jobs.

It went down with three shots, two to the skull and one to the throat. Bellowing as it crashed and rolled partially down the mountain side, streaking red as it went.

Unable to tote anymore back after they had secured the moose's carcass, they had begun their trek back to their trucks parked at the base of the mountain, singing in earnest, pumped from their hunt.

Staci has the Faithful park the trucks near the unloading docks and take their kills off towards the kitchens, watching as they continue their marching songs even well into the hospital. He's given them orders to reward the soon to be Faithful, the now mostly Faithful, with a warm, larger than usual meal and clean, dry clothes.

When they're out of sight, he sighs and heads for his quarters, knowing he'll find Jacob still awake.

When he pushes open the door to their room, Jacob is sitting in his desk chair, facing out the patio doors. It's a position Staci's found him in several times over the last few weeks, Jacob gazing out into the distance like somehow the stars would tell him their secrets. Solve the questions rattling around his skull that he won't share with Staci.

“Hey,” Staci calls, announcing his presence. He frowns when Jacob doesn't respond, though he can vaguely make out Jacob looking at his reflection in the fogged glass panes of the door.

Jacob hums in response, but still doesn't move.

“Everything okay?” he asks, closing the door behind him. He removes his wet boots and stacks them messily beside the other pairs already near the door. Shrugs out of his jacket, trying not to let his teeth chatter too much. It's so _warm_ in here, or maybe it's just that Staci's just so God damn cold. Hair wet with snow and skin a ruddy pink from chill and exertion. “Something happen while I was gone? We did pretty well with our hunt. Four deer, a moose, and like three hare, if you can believe it.”

Silence.

Unease snakes into Staci's gut, clamping tight around his insides. Jacob's been Off since the sacking of Fall's End, hot cold hot cold without any warning, and while things have improved between them dramatically, each time Jacob withdrawals into himself sends Staci reeling, desperate to correct an issue he can't even fucking see.

“Jacob?” Staci whispers. He wants to shuck off all of his damp, waterlogged clothes and camp out in the shower for hours, but he needs Jacob to respond first. Actually _look_ at him instead of his reflection. Call him that stupid nickname, call him _anything._

Just let Staci _in_.

He crosses the space between them and hesitantly pulls Jacob's chair around to face him. The older man does nothing to stop him, just allows the chair to be turned. He even places his feet on the ground to stop the chair's progression when he's directly in front of Staci.

But still he does nothing but sit, eyes somewhere on Staci's throat.

“Sounds like everything went smoothly,” Jacob says, but his voice is devoid of the humor and pride that would usually accompany his words. Sounds like it's coming from far away, from wherever his thoughts are currently. “You did well, Staci.”

It doesn't _feel_ like he did, though, not with Jacob sitting there like a sentinel.

“Come shower with me,” Staci says quietly, his hands gentle on Jacob's jaw as he lifts his chin so their eyes meet.

Jacob looks so hollow, a shell of himself. He studies Staci's face for a few silent heartbeats before pulling his head away with a sigh. “Maybe next time. Go on, get warm.”

“Please?” he whispers. Not too proud to beg, even if normally Jacob would rib him mercilessly for it.

“Staci—”

“Don't shut me out, Jacob.” It takes a second for him to move Jacob's arms out of the way, but once Jacob's lap is clear, Staci climbs astride him, unmindful of his wet clothes. He sits in Jacob's laps, his knees on either side of him, and grips Jacob's dog tags hard.

“Staci,” Jacob says again, but at least this time he's moving. His arms come up to brace on Staci's hips, his movements instinctual more than conscious.

Staci shimmies closer, encouraging Jacob's forehead to rest against his chest. He feels Jacob take a shaky breath against him, feels his fingertips dig deeper into Staci's sides.

“Whatever it is...worry about it in the morning? Shower with me,” Staci implores.

“Say it.” Muffled against his collarbone, barely audible, but Staci would know those words anywhere.

“ _Yours_ ,” he whispers.

He's in the air before he knows it, Jacob's hands cupped under his thighs. They head to the bathroom in silence, Jacob's heart thundering against Staci's chest.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :-| here we are again...w/ me not ending the story. this chapter was weirdly difficult for me to write, so i hope it doesn't come off horribly? sorry it took so long, too!
> 
> i WANT to say there's just one more chapter, but y'all know how bad i am with ending this so uh...take it.


	14. Chapter 14

Quiet rapping on the door wakes Staci shortly after the sun's risen.

He blinks in the dimness of the room, soft pale light just barely reaching past Jacob's desk, less pouring in, more trickling in from the glass patio doors. It's snowing again but just barely, lazy fat flakes drifting down from the sky, halfhearted harbingers of the day's later forecasted downpour.

For the most part, Jacob is unfazed. Awakened but uncaring of the disturbance as long as they stop and stop _soon_. His face is smashed into the column of Staci's throat, beard soft yet still scratchy against the junction of his shoulder and neck. His back's to the wall their bed is pressed against, Staci's back to his front, and he's got one long, muscled arm thrown across Staci's waist, hand tucked beneath his ribs. Their legs are entwined, Staci's icy bare feet cold against Jacob's ankle, even through the tops of his socks.

He lifts his arm long enough to gesture vaguely away from their bed and mumbles, “Go tell them to fuck off.” Drops his arm a little too carelessly, has it crashing back into Staci's stomach, knocking the wind and a grunt out of him. Jacob snorts when Staci hisses, grumbling, but apologizes with his lips against Staci's pulse, mouth sweet and hot and molasses slow. Fucking nuzzles into him, sleep drunk and content, his worries paused for the moment. Hips lazily rolling into Staci's ass, warm bare skin to warm bare skin.

“This is your compound, Jacob, not mine. You do it,” Staci gripes, craning his neck to give Jacob more room all the same. Hums over the continued knocking.

Jacob's lips rumble against Staci's skin as he says, “You're closest to the door, Peaches. Tell them to fuck off unless the place is being invaded and then get your ass back in bed.”

He nudges Staci then, has him nearly tumbling out and onto the floor. With a stink eye Jacob doesn't even see, his face pressed into the pillow where Staci's head had been, Staci clamors to his feet, into a pair of discarded jeans, and shambles to the door.

Hand on the doorknob, as he twists and pulls open the door he calls, “Are we being invaded? Because if not—”

“I assure you, if we were being invaded, I wouldn't have bothered with knocking.”

“Oh shit, Joe,” Staci hears behind him, followed by the gentle cries of mattress springs protesting under Jacob's quickly shifting weight. There's the sound of denim scratching against cotton as Jacob attempts to wriggle into his pants while still seated on the bed. Staci hears him curse when he gets the sheet covering his crotch stuck in the teeth of his zipper.

His socks practically squeak against the concrete floor in his scrabbling haste to get to the door. He's at Staci's back in an instant, his chest heavily rising and falling against the sweep of Staci's shoulder blades. “Figured you'd sleep longer than this.”

Staci had figured that Joseph was part of the insidious worry rooting itself in Jacob's chest, but his suspicions are all but confirmed as he feels Jacob's heart jumpstart behind him, beating just a hair too fast for someone simply startled by their brother's presence this early in the morning. His voice is off, even for just having woken up—volume and tone fluxing, Jacob caught off guard. Struggling to re-situate the weight of their little fucked up world back onto his shoulders, anxious to hide the evidence of his shrugging, if only for a moment.

Joseph smiles sweetly at them, straight white teeth pressed together in a line. In primates, the offering of a closed smile, teeth held together, is often a sign of submission, but Joseph gives off the vibe of anything but servile. His clothes are rumpled and bags are beginning to form beneath his eyes, but Joseph Seed is seldom any less than fully in charge. Alpha and Omega both.

“I don't tend to sleep well outside of my own space,” Joseph says as he smooths a hand down the front of his white button-up. Above the soft hints of exhaustion bruises beneath his eyes, his gaze is sharp and assessing as it flickers from Staci to Jacob, then back.

Less primate as a whole, more reptilian. Shrewd, almost cold blue eyes playing at amused.

“I figured we could have breakfast and then a service. A special treat for those so far removed from our usual podium down the mountain.”

Jacob doesn't want a service. Doesn't want fucking breakfast yet, either. He wants to climb back into bed with Staci and continue what they had started, wants to lick the sleep from Staci's mouth and encourage sleep warm skin to burn for him.

Breakfast and a service it is.

“Head on down, we'll get dressed and meet you there. I'll radio and wake up the Compound,” Jacob mutters. He scrubs at the side of his face, his beard, with one hand, trying to rub the remainders of sleep out of himself. There are pillow creases dug into his cheeks, scoring his already scarred face further.

With a nod, Joseph's already turning when he calls over his shoulder, “See you soon.” It's less of a goodbye and more a strongly encouraged suggestion.

Staci closes the door quietly while Jacob fetches a walkie. He leans his forehead against the cool metal of the door and listens as Jacob's low, rumbling voice gives a wake-up call and instructions, lets it wash over him warm and heavy. He'd make a blanket of it if he could and climb back into bed, his muscles still a little sore from his hunt yesterday.

The shower had helped—as had Jacob's feverish efforts in the shower, slick hands and hot mouth and Jacob desperate, clingy, shivering and claiming—but the best medicine would've been a laxer day, spent lounging in bed for as long as Staci could manage.

Their domesticity is its own balm for Staci's aches and pains, those of the tangible, physical nature but also those of the mental, the psychological. It's easier to forget the Before when the Current, the Now, is Jacob warm and passionate and His.

“We should go,” Jacob tells him, sitting on the edge of their bed. He's got on his jeans and socks, his clinking silver dog tags, but nothing else. Just a world weary expression drooping his face. He doesn't actually make a move to do anything more, would like to do literally anything else, but the point still stands: they should go.

 _See you soon_ , and while punctuality is neither sin nor virtue, it's still important to the Father.

“Jacob,” Staci says. Voice soft, unassuming, as he slowly crosses the distance between the doorway and their bed.

“C'mon, Staci—”

His lower lip's between his teeth, and he nervously worries at it as Jacob studies his face for a long, drawn out moment. Things have been Better, _they've_ been Better, but Joseph is still a touchy subject. It's obvious to anyone that Jacob loves and respects his brother, but the longer Staci is at Jacob's side, the more he sees the other side of the coin: Jacob's fear and resentment of Joseph.

They've talked enough about Jacob's past for Staci to gather that Jacob's life was aimless and empty after the military cut him loose, and it was only Joseph's miraculous resurrection that gave Jacob direction, _purpose_ again. He's scared of losing that purpose, of losing his family again, and now with John gone he's got to hold on to what he's got left, even if it means enduring thorns.

He's got Staci and he's got Faith, but some part of Jacob will always be desperate for his own blood, and he'll try and try to hold onto it even if he has to spill his own.

Staci's got to maneuver carefully here, to choose his words with precision and neutrality. Allow Jacob to either make the full connection or shelve it for some other time.

“It's got something to do with Joseph, doesn't it? Whatever's got you so worked up,” Staci says. He risks placing a hand on Jacob's cheek and allowing the touch to skirt upward, toward his scalp. Smiles sadly when Jacob simultaneously pushes into the touch and flinches almost imperceptibly.

He could deny it. Give Staci some half-assed lie about how the Grove is a bigger deal than they thought, or that there's something wrong with the Bliss being shipped to them from the Henbane.

He doesn't. Jacob closes his eyes for a brief second and sighs. “Everything in Hope County has something to do with Joseph.”

-

Joseph is already seated when they arrive at the mess hall. He's sitting at a table in the center of the room, slowly stirring a splash of milk into his coffee. The expression on his face is serene as his spoon tinkles against the rim of his ceramic mug, and with a genial, fatherly nod here and there he kindly greets the Faithful as they greet him.

The masses of Faithful pouring into the cafeteria in droves part around his table like the sea, their eyes reverent and their smiles wide as they realize the Father is in their midst, way up high in the cold and snow. Even some of the soon to be Faithful greet him, gazes down shyly, cheeks pink.

Staci wonders just how much longer they're remain on the cusp. Assimilation into the Family tends to happen in starts and stops and then all at once, like the final creaking protests of an old house before it caves in on itself.

Before they've even left the doorway, Staci knows that Joseph's seating choice was an intentional power move. Forcing Jacob to not only meet him in the middle, but to sit somewhere Joseph knows will make him uncomfortable. Joseph's even sitting on the side of the table facing the door, meaning Jacob will have to not only sit in the middle of the room, but with his back to the entryway.

As soon as the realization hit him, Staci realizes Jacob has noticed it, too. Shoulders drawn back and tense, jaw clenched, entire body broadcasting discomfort, but they still press on. They weave in and out of the paths of the Faithful, too caught up in the Father's presence to realize their Herald is attempting to make his way through them.

At the table, Jacob hesitates for the briefest of seconds before sliding his body into the middle seat, effectively separating Joseph from Staci. Joseph can still see him, of course, but in order to touch him he'd have to make a concentrated effort to do so. Reach across Jacob or move to the other empty seat under Jacob's watchful gaze.

The snort Joseph gives is swallowed by his coffee mug as he lifts it to his lips. His eyes cut across the table to Staci, and Joseph winks at him so quickly Staci's not truly sure if he imagined it or not. A power surge in the fluorescent bulbs above them, catching in the steely blue of his eyes.

They don't speak, no morning pleasantries or small talk. A member of the kitchen staff comes out to bring Jacob and Staci coffee, and though this is far from the first time Staci's been included like this, each and every time warms him, has him fighting a smile.

He thinks of how far he's come, how far _they've_ come, from that horrible second night and that stunted morning after to Jacob warm and solid at his side, to Staci's coffee doctored exactly how he likes it without having to ask.

Joseph doesn't fight his own smile, lets it grow and grow from behind his mug until the corners of it are clearly visible even with his lips attached to it, his throat working in long pulls. The points of his lips are sharp, taut, like dagger points.

Staci's not sure _why_ he's smiling, unless the Father's a fucking telepath now. The thought is wholly ludicrous, even with some of the crazy shit he's seen Jacob do with his conditioning, but something about Joseph has never seemed truly Right to Staci. Always too Much, too Big for his body, like the Voice in his head is less God and more fae.

Staci doesn't truly believe in any of that shit, God and fae both, but it still has his blood running cold and his gaze dropping to the table. He shoves his memories back into their boxes, both the fond and not so fond—each in their own little mental folders, labeled simply YES and NO—for safe keeping. He knows it's ridiculous even as he does so, but he's unwilling to take any chances, to add ammo into Joseph's arsenal.

“It is nice to finally see you again, Staci. I was beginning to wonder if Jacob was ever going to let you resurface again,” Joseph says. When Staci looks at him, his smile is less severe but no less barbed. Though his eyes are on Staci, the pointed edge of his grin, of his falsely friendly words, is all for Jacob.

From around the handle of his own coffee mug, Jacob's grip tightens. White knuckles and white ceramic and white noise, buzzing in his ears.

It's been a while since Staci has seen Joseph, since shortly after the bonfire and the sacking of Fall's End. Staci's never thought anything of it, used to Jacob's flighty whims and seclusion in the Mountains, but now Staci realizes that that fact is in no small part to Jacob carefully influencing his actions. Sending him here and there at precise moments, Training at odd hours— _Keeps them on their toes, Peaches—_ and random hunts out of the blue.

Effectively, quietly putting some breathing room between Staci and Joseph.

_I asked if you were fucking him._

_Fuckin' let him watch. Close as he's gonna ever get to you himself, yeah?_

_Would it make you happy?_

Staci had always assumed it was because Jacob was jealous, unnecessarily threatened by Joseph, by the Father. Hoarding Staci like he were treasure and Jacob a dragon, looming and possessive. Fire-breathing. But watching the tension build in Jacob anew, Staci realizes Jacob is less fire-breathing and more fire-consumed, the Wrath of flames not only embedded in his skin but inside his ribcage, banked around his heart.

He can't quite put his finger on Jacob's motivation outside of jealousy—sometimes Jacob is stiff for hours after interactions with his brother, sharp and aggressive and punchy, but he loves Joseph, would die to defend him, that much Staci is sure of.

Stuck like Staci in a cycle he knows is unhealthy, but wholly at the whims of his heart. Unable to break free even when given the choice, too entrenched in it all to ever willfully pull away.

Joseph is... _Joseph_ , for lack of a better word. He's well meaning but the meaning is only ever his own. The only right way to do things is his way—His way, decreed down through Joseph—and Joseph will use every tool in his arsenal to achieve his goals.

All's well that ends well, even if Joseph has to break and realign bones to do so. Staci wonders whether he or Jacob will be the bone breaking and realigning.

He can't fathom that he's somehow important enough to Joseph to warrant him rattling Jacob so. As he swallows a mouthful of coffee and prepares to answer Joseph, Staci decides that the ultimate goal is Jacob, forcing Jacob's hand into something or other and somehow using Staci to achieve this.

Staci sets his mug back down on the tabletop. Beneath the table, he bumps his ankle against Jacob's and leaves it there.

“It's been hectic up here, Father, with the new recruits and the weather. We'd been working hard and upping the Training so we'd be prepared.” The color slowly returns to Jacob's knuckles as Staci speaks. Staci's small, placating smile softens genuinely when Jacob's leg leans more soundly into his own.

Joseph leans into the table, elbows on its face. His eyes rove over Staci's body with barely contained eagerness, crackling with electricity. “And Train you _have_ , Deputy Pratt. I hear you've been busy, indeed. Leading Jacob's soldiers like they're your own.”

Jacob knows what Joseph is hinting at even if Staci doesn't, but even that doesn't stop his lizard brain from being thrilled that his chosen partner's achievements are being praised. The Pride sings in his chest, burns along his ribs where the word itself is carved.

“They're still Jacob's,” Staci assures. Presses his foot hard against Jacob's until it aches a little. “But the Family up here respect me—”

“The Family _everywhere_ would love to respect you, Staci,” Joseph says. He looks from Staci to Jacob and back and takes a deep, shuddering breath. “They talk about you but they do not _know_ you yet. It could be so easy, don't you see?”

“Joe,” Jacob begins, and if Joseph were anyone else his quiet, heavy tone would be enough to urge them off. As it stands, Staci swallows hard instinctively, but makes no move to put any distance between them.

“It needn't be so difficult, Jacob, I swear to you.” Joseph seems to vibrate in his chair. He startles minutely when plates start appearing on their tabletop, like he had forgotten it wasn't just the three of them in the world. He's polite, respectful during the Faithful's doling out of their breakfast, but Staci can feel his careful restraint fraying the longer it takes to divvy things out.

 _Then quit making it so difficult_ Jacob barely keeps himself from saying.

“They—”

“This conversation can wait until after breakfast, Joe. None of us are going anywhere, but eggs are shit cold so we need to eat while it's hot.” Happy for the distraction, Jacob makes a show of tucking into his breakfast. The eggs are better than usual, all of the stops pulled out for the Father, but even that doesn't stop the distant, hollow aching in Jacob's gut.

When he swallows a forkful, he imagines he can hear them clinking against the walls of his stomach, like a coin falling down the shaft of an empty well.

The look on Joseph's face is far from pleased, but he nods softly and unfurls a napkin to tuck into his lap. They eat in silence for a few minutes, the furl in Joseph's brow deepening with each passing moment, until Joseph suddenly rises and the cafeteria falls silent.

“Children! Faithful, _Family_. I was already planning on a private sermon today for you all, you brave, dedicated souls so far from our main church, but I feel the spirit of God within me at this very moment and cannot keep silent, lest it burst from my body like holy light.”

Joseph's only just getting started, but Staci's already a little bewitched. He preaches with his entire body, the corded, whippet length of it wielded like an orchestral baton, directing His words for maximum effect. Arms gesticulating to and fro. The emotions flickering across his face practically theater.

“Eat! Eat the food the Lord has provided while I speak of His word, let it nourish your body as His message nourishes your soul.” There's sweat beginning to bead on his brow as he circles their table and comes to rest behind Jacob and Staci. One hand finds Jacob's shoulder and the other Staci's, and he squeezes them both before flying away, further into the cafeteria.

The Faithful watch him in different stages of eating—some frozen, enraptured with utensils halfway between their dish and their mouth; some who have carefully lowered their forks in order to watch the Father without distraction; others who chew absently with eyes wide, drinking their fill as they eat.

Staci manages to tear his eyes away from Joseph to look at Jacob. He looks just as swallowed up by Joseph's riptide, but his expression is less blissful than the Faithful around them. He looks uneasy, like he's caught up and dizzy but unable to stop it. Along for the ride whether he likes it or not. Hoping things turn out okay while bracing for the worst.

It's easy to find Joseph again even among the sprawling, packed mess hall. He seems to give off a radiating energy, his own personal spotlight cast on him by God. Staci feels his eyes stinging as he watches Joseph make a lap of the room, occasionally touching the shoulders of the Family as he goes.

“I would like to talk to you about destiny. About God's plan. You all know the main plan He has set before us—ensure the swift and just return of Eden on earth. To guide, to _coax_ this sinful world kicking and screaming into His holy light. Even when they cry, even when they beg, even when they fight us, our cause is just and it is holy and it is _Right_.” A member of the Faithful calls out an _amen_ and the word ripples through everyone in attendance, has them sitting up straighter and concentrating more fully on Joseph. Most of the Faithful have sat down their utensils and stopped eating to watch and listen.

“It is not always easy, hell it is not always _Good_ , but it is what's Right, and we must do what is Right in service of the Lord our God. You cannot escape destiny. It is not something you can outrun on foot or in a pickup truck. It is always there, right on schedule. Nothing you can do will impede its progress.”

He's half the room away, but his eyes are on their table. From this distance, Staci can't determine whether he's eyeing him or Jacob. Perhaps both of them.

Staci's not running from anything, though. He doesn't know of anything _to_ run from—ever since this thing with Jacob began, there's been nothing else to resist or endure. Just this, just Them.

Fated, inescapable. Right for how Wrong it is.

But Jacob keeps his cards close to his chest, and the more Joseph winds himself up, the more the hair on the back of Staci's neck rises. Has Jacob kept something from him? Staci racks his brain for something, anything, because the topic of this impromptu sermon _has_ to lie somewhere between them.

Maybe literally between them?

Joseph had accepted them wholly in his Compound, but maybe Jacob was still to be promised to some woman to ensure reproduction, population replenishment after the Collapse. Their relationship wasn't sinful because it was always meant to be a footnote.

It doesn't _feel_ like the answer, but Staci's grasping at straws here.

“So why fight it? Why exhaust yourself struggling when you can merely open up your arms and receive? The Lord never gives you more than you can handle, after all. Do not run from Him. Turn to Him, turn to your destiny. _Trust_ in Him, even when it's agonizing.”

Joseph pivots back towards them, and his entire tone changes. “Sometimes the hand we are dealt is terrible. Hard, lonely, blisteringly painful. We endure and we endure and we endure some more, because we must—because through the fires of our suffering we are cleansed, and it is only after conflict that we truly Understand.”

The quiet mania of his words drips honey-sweet over all in attendance. Thick and syrupy, enveloping them in his divine message.

“Who here among us has not suffered? Has not toiled and fought and struggled? I tell you this: through your blood, sweat, and tears, you show your love to God and He rejoices in your sacrifices, in your willingness to serve Him. I tell you this also: there is one among us who has toiled for us, for this Family, for God, and has gone largely unrecognized. God rejoices in them but the Family has been unable to because of fear. We mustn't fear our destinies, even if they hurt. Even if they bleed us dry, because everything we do is in service of a higher power.”

The hollow aching in Jacob's gut feels like a gaping maw, like it's going to eat him from the inside out. There's nothing he can do about it, though. He's got to sit here and endure this wrecking ball thundering towards his life. Gotta fucking grin and bear it.

The Father is here and he will not, cannot be stopped, and while Joseph may have promised him until the new year the Father agreed to no such parlay.

“There is no use in trying to outpace destiny. We are but men trekking in the desert, and destiny is the wolves on our heel, looming ever closer.”

Jacob bodily flinches, and he finally retracts his leg from Staci's to brace it behind the leg of his chair. He pushes hard against the metal legs, pushes until the buzzing in his ears is overpowered by the throbbing ache in his calves. He can feel eyes on him, Joseph's and Staci's both. He meets neither of them, instead focuses on his hands braced against the lip of the table.

“Jacob?” Staci whispers as quietly as he can. His heart is thundering in his chest but he doesn't know _why_. Wishes desperately that he understood.

The sound Jacob makes when Staci wraps his hand around his wrist is swallowed by another torrent of words from Joseph.

Small and wounded. Resigned.

“Sometimes destiny takes us down strange, dark paths. Sometimes destiny takes from you, rips the things you love right out of your hands. Think of those you know and love who are now gone, by the hands of sinners, of the unsaved. Weep but also rejoice! For they are with Him now, and you shall be with Them later.

“Think of those you know and love now, whose loss would steal the very breath from your lungs. Hold tight to them, but do not try to keep to from their own destinies. It's a fool's errand. Focus your energy on serving God, on uplifting your brethren so that you _both_ may serve God as destiny intends.”

Joseph's just a few tables away from them. He expertly weaves his body through the tables of Faithful, one foot effortlessly before the other. The way his shoulders move as he walks, swaying and rolling like a predator, a fucking lion beautiful and terrible in their midst, has Staci's heart frantically crawling up his throat.

If all of the fear and nerves and _love_ Staci feels rises up and out of him with the bile churning in his stomach, Staci's afraid he might drown with it blocking his airway.

He comes to a stop beside Staci, his hand heavy and warm on his shoulder. His fingers flex and tick and shake, the energy within Joseph having no other means of escape.

Jacob shuts his eyes, head bowed. Just as adrift in the blackness as he is in his own fucking mess hall.

It looks like he's praying, and the illusion combined with his submission has Joseph a little lightheaded. Giddy, swaying under the glorious weight of the Voice in his head celebrating yet another victory.

What Joseph is doing is right and godly, and Jacob will see it soon.

There's no other alternative, really.

“Have you all met Deputy Pratt? I'm sure you all have. His destiny has been hard won, I assure you, wrought with suffering and sacrifice. We found him on the night the Reaping began—witnessed his rebirth. Pulled him from burning, dented steel and dragged him into God's holy light. He has been tested and tested and tested, and even when we, even _he_ expected him to break—he simply bent. He _succeeded_ , he _thrived_ , because it was God's will. Don't you see? Don't you _see_?”

Joseph squeezes his shoulder so hard, Staci deliriously wonders if he'll bruise him down to the bone. Fuck, if he'll outright snap his collarbone in half.

“All that you have endured, Staci Pratt—it has not been in vain. This, _we_ , are your destiny. You have already been rewarded with so much here—love and Strength and prestige—but the Lord is not done with you yet. You must unshackle yourself from fear and embrace what else God has in store for you.”

The blood in Jacob's wrist rushes against Staci's hand, pulses against his palm, _thud thud thud_. Jacob drops his hand but Staci does not loosen his grip, and their conjoined limbs hang limply between them.

“Fuck,” Jacob whispers, miserable.

“I ask you here, in front of the Family and God, for you, Staci Pratt, to accept the mantel of your destiny and become a Herald of Eden's Gate. Help return Holland Valley to its previous glory.”

Suddenly there's no air in the room. Staci's head feels too heavy, too full of pressure. So much, too much, that it's gonna cause his eyes to _pop!_ right out of their sockets.

In the distance, he can make out the roar of the Faithful begging him to accept, heralding him into his new title. Stomping feet and harsh whistles cracking through the air, an explosion of sound still too weak to block out Joseph's feverish words.

_become a herald become a Herald Become A Herald_

Joseph's hand on his chin, drawing his gaze up and onto him. His collarbone stinging, the blood flow returning to the area Joseph had tourniqueted with his mania. Blue eyes flaying him alive, digging into his skin alongside Joseph's electrified grin.

Teeth bared, absolutely the biggest threat in the room.

Jacob's wrist in his grip, limp and nearly lifeless. Defeated.

“ _Yes_ ,” Staci whispers. His lips tingle with it, _yes yes yes_. When he swallows hard, Staci swears he can taste brimstone.

A fucking _herald_ , Jesus fucking Christ. As if his life couldn't get any more surreal, Joseph Seed has just asked him to become a Herald and he _accepted_.

Not like there was any other option, but.

A herald.

Jesus Christ.

 _Fuck_ , indeed.

-

He doesn't remember leaving the mess hall.

One minute he's signing what little remains of his soul away to Joseph Seed, and the next he's sitting on his bed. Eyes staring forward, not really processing anything as something, _somebody_ moves before him.

There are fingers in front of his face, snapping quickly, _click click click_. When he doesn't react, there's another sound that follows, a loud, unhappy groan.

Pressure against his shins, the tops of his thighs. The body in front of him has sunk to their knees and draped themselves over his lap, the back of their head snug against Staci's lower stomach. They're warm but afraid, if the rapid, rabbit-quick beating of their heart is anything to go by.

There's a clock ticking somewhere, just out of synch with the thunderous heart beat beat beating against him. Staci focuses on it and attempts to align his breathing with it.

_Tick, breath in. THUDTHUDTHUD Tock, hold. THUDTHUDTHUD Tick, breath out._

_Tock, breath in. THUDTHUDTHUD Tick, hold. THUDTHUDTHUD Tock, breath out._

_Tick, breath in. THUDTHUDTHUD Tock, hold. THUDTHUDTHUD Tick, breath out._

His vision sharpens enough for Staci to observe that the body in his lap is Jacob's, not that it's a surprise. His eyes feel sluggish, heavy, as he idly studies Jacob, bogged down by this new weight dragging him further into the Family's fucked up waters, like a cinderblock chained to his leg.

Even more fucked up is Staci not feeling panicked or worried. Just— _just_.

 _Tick, in_.

_THUDTHUDTHUD_

It feels like it takes ages to look from the top of Jacob's skull to the base of his neck, to sweep down the wide, muscled expanse of his back and then up, up, up again.

His body and mind both are having such a hard time processing this new bit of information, this new step he's apparently taking in his weird, fucked up life, but even then he's trying to do more—trying to figure out why exactly Jacob looks so God damn miserable. Supplicant across Staci's lap.

Staci's going to be a Herald, not fucking _dead_.

 _Tick, hold_.

_THUDTHUDTHUD_

Is it a power thing? Is Jacob upset that Staci's going to be nearly on the same level? Only just beneath Jacob because Jacob will always have special privileges being Joseph's blood.

Does this thing between them not have the same pull if Staci is a Herald? Is it only still attractive to Jacob if he's subservient?

Yours, but with a lowercase y.

_Tock, out._

_THUDTHUDTHUD_

No other reason fits, and God does he look for one. The distance is small, easily surmountable by car. Hell, on foot if either of them is really determined. And there's this thing called helicopters! The Family's got a fleet's worth, and Staci's a God damn licensed pilot.

What else is there? Unless Joseph's word for _Herald_ means the same thing as _sacrifice_ of the human sort, Jacob should be bursting at the seems with Pride.

Jacob's talking in his lap, Staci can feel the rumbling vibrations of speech resonating against the tops of his thighs. Staci can't make his words out, but he wishes desperately that he could. What if Jacob's explaining his misery forthright and Staci's missing it because his worldview won't fucking right itself?

“Jacob?” Staci croaks.

Jacob freezes, his lips stilling. The beat of his heart still thunders against the tops of Staci's thighs, but save for that he's utterly still.

No, no no no no, Staci needs him to explain himself and explain himself _now_. He shakes his head violently and groans quietly when the world begins to spin. The fight to refocus is exhausting, but when he finally, blessedly manages to resurface, Staci feels spent but clearer.

“Jacob,” he breathes.

Slowly Jacob unfolds his body. Still on his knees while Staci's on the bed, the top of his head comes up around the middle of Staci's throat. His face is worn, haggard, like he'd been up all night and not sleeping soundly pressed to Staci's back.

Staci suddenly realizes he has no clue what time it is. For all the help the clock gave him in helping him regulate his breathing, he never even fucking looked at it for the time.

How long has it been since Joseph promoted him? Anointed him? Elevated?

It's unimportant. Staci could've lost days, _weeks,_ and it wouldn't be as important as finding out why Jacob looks like John rose from the grave only to die immediately after.

“I'm a herald,” he begins. He's cut off by Jacob's bark of fractured, weak laughter. Staci idly watches as Jacob scrubs both hands up and down his face, through his beard, as he shakes with it. He sounds delirious, hysteric. His eyes are dry but the misery in them is beyond tears, heavy and pitiful.

Staci licks his lips with a too thick tongue. Everything feels soupy and disjointed, but the lag between what his senses observe and what his brain processes is nearly entirely gone.

“I'm a herald,” he says again, “so why are you acting like this is the end?”

Once the words start, there's no way for Staci to stop them. They tumble from his lips like vomit, like his soul is purging all of the repressed emotions he's kept in the recesses of his conscious.

“Do you not want me anymore, is that it? Am I only attractive to you when I'm – I'm sniveling and Weak?” Staci's up and away from Jacob quickly, before Jacob can even climb up off his knees. He starts pacing the room, hands gesticulating wildly in front of him. “Do you only want me when I'm beneath you and fearful and so stupidly yours I don't stop to think i-i-if I'm even _mine_ anymore?”

It's like his body jumpstarts from zero and flies into the hundreds, the speed his brain's whirling at protesting like an overworked motor. Shrieking like Staci most definitely is.

“Staci—”

“Don't fucking Staci me!” he roars. His hand flies out and connects with Jacob's chest, the back of his hand stinging where it had impacted just beneath J. SEED.

Jacob doesn't move an inch, doesn't react bodily. Three months ago if Staci had even _thought_ about doing something like that, Jacob would've locked that shit down in an instant.

As it stands, he looks mostly resigned to this fate, like he's awaiting a firing squad.

“Okay, then,” Jacob quietly says. Quietly, so uncharacteristically quiet, muted by the misery wrongly pressed into his mouth like a gag.

“You don't – you don't get to be upset! Why're you upset? This is _good_ , why're you acting like it's bad? I've done everything for you, I've done so many horrible things. You don't get to try and throw me away.” Through the furious, miserable tears welling up in Staci's eyes, he can see Jacob's face stutter through several emotions: banked anger, guilt, sadness. He spins through them faster than Staci can digest, and the added insult of this new confusion spurs him on further.

“Dick not get hard unless I'm forced into fucking you?” The desire to _hurts_ swells inside him, the righteous need for cruelty, for Jacob's blood or tears or _both,_ choking him with its intensity. He aims to eviscerate and grins when he sees his comment land, the color blanching from Jacob's face as he finally, finally reacts.

Jacob takes a step back. Eyes desperate and disbelieving and _guilty_ in his skull.

Before the Whitetails, Staci wasn't the nicest guy ever but he was generally Nice, Good. A fucking cop, for Christ's sake. He'd never intentionally say anything like this to wound someone, to maim the way it's gutting Jacob, but he chalks it up to yet another thing that's changed about him up here in the Mountains.

Staci takes a step forward. He can smell the coffee on Jacob's breath as he exhales shakily.

“Tell me, Jacob! You took _everything_ from me up here in this Hell, you can't – can't take this from me when I've made it Home. You don't get to do that, you don't get to beat me and starve me and _touch me_ and make me _—_ ” His voice cracks around all of his anger, his fear. He hiccups on a sob and brushes past Jacob, body checking him as he goes.

The sting in his left side is grounding. It helps him calm down enough to angrily swipe at his eyes and collect his thoughts.

“Make me _love you_ , you fucking Monster. You don't get to do that—you don't get to take it away from me, not after all of this,” he says, voice small and watery. The snow outside their patio is coming down much heavier now, cascading down from the sky in sheets of pure, sparkling white.

Staci wants to end this conversation and find out how far he can trek out into it before his body surrenders to the cold.

He feels hands on his waist, urging his body around. Staci doesn't fight it, exhausted and miserable and heartsick. Just lets Jacob manipulate his body like he always has, pressing him back and into the metal and glass of the patio door.

“Say it again,” Jacob says. His gaze is so heavy, so fiery on Staci's skin that he wonders if Jacob means to brand him the way life has branded Jacob.

“I hate you,” Staci chokes. “I hate you and you can't do this to me.”

Jacob grips his cheeks hard, pulling Staci forward so they're nose to nose. He'll probably bruise, twin oval blemishes dotting his cheeks. “Say. It. Again. Say it, Staci.”

“I love you, you miserable bastard. After everything you've done to me, th-this has to be the cruelest. I _love_ you and if you try to leave me, I'll—”

Their kiss is forceful and messy, their teeth clicking and clashing, tearing into the thin, sensitive skin of their lips. Jacob presses him against the patio doors so hard they squeal in protest, threatening to give way beneath their combined weights.

To keep from throwing them through a pane of glass, Jacob drags them to the floor. Unmindful of his knees impacting the ground roughly, he simply pulls Staci down and into him until they're pressed together from nose to kneecap, bodies as close together as they can be.

Jacob rips his mouth away and presses fervent kisses up and down the side of Staci's face. His hands are moving with a mind of their own, fluttering up and down Staci's side. Gripping his hips for a moment, squeezing his shoulder the next.

“I want you to show the Family how Strong you are, how Strong I _know_ you are,” Jacob hisses, pawing at Staci's shirt. “I want you to show those fucking weaklings in the Resistance what you can do. Give them a front row seat as you dismantle them again, fuck, Staci.” He gets Staci's shirt up and off, throws it over his shoulder. He runs his hands up and down Staci's chest, fingers spread wide to touch every bit of skin he can. Drags his nails through the thick trail of hair bisecting his stomach, dusting through the steadily returning definition in his abs.

 _Fuck_ but he gets to keep him, doesn't he? All that wasted time when he should've known they were both in too deep.

He stops just before Staci's bleeding. Retracts his hands from Staci's chest and places them on Staci's shoulders, urging him further onto the ground.

Staci just lets him like he always has, eyes hopeful and wet and so stupidly trusting on Jacob's unworthy face, even when Jacob pulls a drop point knife from his pocket. The blade itself is black, almost matte, but when Jacob flicks his wrist the razor sharp edge of it gleams silver and perfect in the light.

“I want you to show everyone who you belong to, who you love. Who loves you, fuck. Fuck. Can I do it? Can I?” It's already pressed to Staci's chest, right above his heart.

It barely takes any effort at all to nod yes.

The air whistles through his teeth in a hiss as Jacob digs into his skin. Staci can smell his blood welling to the surface, beading up as Jacob pulls down hard for the stem of the J and then slashes over to the left, adding its tail.

“I love you,” Jacob tells him as he flicks through the slants of the A with near surgical precision. The mechanics of the C give him pause for a moment before he decides on shaping it so it looks like a lesser than symbol. “When I'm done, you can do me, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Staci whines, trying his best not to wriggle as Jacob begins his O. Tears of pain and love trickle down his face, dripping from his cheekbones into his hair.

It's closer to a diamond when Jacob's through with it, the angle and blade wrong, wrong to make the circular shape of a O. If John were here, he could tattoo it, make it pretty—but Jacob's glad it's his own hand and not John's.

There's nothing pretty about their love, it's rough and bloody and branded into their bodies.

Beautiful but so, so fucked up.

“Almost done, baby. Almost done. Fuck, you look so good with my name in you. Want it all over you, fucking everywhere.” Jacob feels like he's about to burst apart, so full of emotion that it's going to shatter him into millions of little pieces. His hand trembles minutely when he slashes the back of the B into Staci's chest, followed swiftly by two greater than symbols for the humps.

It's perfect, it's so fucking perfect. Blood dripping down Staci's sides like the tears on his face.

Jacob runs a hand through his masterpiece, grinning wolfishly as Staci hisses and wriggles first away and then into his touch. The blood is sticky and warm against his fingers, beading down down down to his palm.

“Switch with me,” Staci says.

He stops with his fingerpainting and gives Staci a hand, the same one he had just been dragging through the mess on Staci's chest. He helps him to his knees and then trades places after he removes his own shirt, throwing it somewhere near the bed.

The concrete beneath him is wet with blood and tears.

Jacob's heart's never been fuller.


	15. Chapter 15

Staci scrambles forward to straddle Jacob. From this angle, he's got a better lay of the land, a better view of the canvas of Jacob's chest. His own was mostly blemish free, marked here and there with old chickenpox scars and faded brown-silver scars gifted to him by Jacob and Jacob's men, but Jacob's—Jacob's is a tapestry all its own.

Red fur bisects the center of his chest, runs down his pecs and his abs to thicken and darken low on his belly. Pocked, pink-silver burn scars score the majority of his right flank, creeping from his neck down, down into the waistband of his fatigues. Riddled across his torso are scarred over gashes and slashes and other gore, bullet holes like the one Tammy had gifted him.

MONSTER, of course, Tammy's hugest and most noticeable gift, huge and sprawling across the top of his chest.

Others given to him by more tender, careful hands, WRATH above his right collarbone, partially hacked through by Tammy's hand. PRIDE low, low on his ribs, curled around his side. The top of LUST peaking out from his hipbone, showing more and more of itself as Jacob shifts beneath Staci's weight to get comfortable, preparing for the bite of his own blade and the sweet, sweet balm of ownership.

“Anywhere, Staci. Put it anywhere,” Jacob rumbles, the words tickling up Staci's thighs where their bodies are connected. He watches as Staci considers his body from above, wet cheeks catching in the light, tongue clamped between his teeth.

The emotions on his face are hard to pick through, as mashed and mixed together as they must be with how quickly the switch had been flipped between them. Chopped and swirled together like they were thrown into a blender, love and misery and arousal and anger. Raw and stinging and bloody, like the mark of ownership on Staci's chest, half a foot down from his faded bitemarks.

The tears make the chocolate brown of Staci's irises lighten, leaves them an almost honey-whiskey color. Jacob wonders if they're still welling up because of the pain in his chest or the pain in his heart.

“Do it,” Jacob urges, surging his hips up a little to jostle Staci out of his careful consideration. If he riles Staci up, maybe he'll be rougher with him, drag that knife's edge so deep into the meat of Jacob he'll need stitches. He won't get them, wouldn't even consider them—he'd just keep the wound clean of infection and tenderly allow this new, beautiful scar tissue to form.

“Want it above your heart. Like mine,” Staci whispers.

“ _Yes_ ,” Jacob breathes.

He hopes Staci cuts into him so deep the physical mark of Staci's ownership is only thinly separated from the emotional mark he's curled around Jacob's heart by a few insignificant centimeters of sinew and blood.

The edge of the knife is dragged lightly down the center of his body, hard enough for Jacob to feel it, the distant threat of evisceration, but gentle enough that it doesn't do more than leave a risen, irritated line through his chest hair.

“You didn't answer my question,” Staci tells him as he brings his body forward, holding himself over the ruined expanse of Jacob's chest. He trails the knife's edge across the width of MONSTER, allowing it to stop in the center of the S and slide down, down. Right above Jacob's thundering heart.

“Which one?” Jacob hisses as the first slash of Staci's own S carves its way into his chest. The blood trickles across his body in all directions, dripping lazily down his stomach and ribs, some of it even dribbling upward to pool in the dip of his collarbone. Its smell is even more pungent in his nose than Staci's had been, thick and iron-rich and cloying, and without conscious thought Jacob hums at the righteousness of it all and grips hard at Staci's hips, the touch as much about steadying Staci as it is about anchoring himself. “Does my dick—”

The knife drags particularly deep through the third slash on Jacob's chest, leaving him with a lightning bolt shaped S on his breast. It stings brightly, blinks in his foggy, lovesick skull, his pulse hammering where the blade has ripped through.

“Not _that_ one,” Staci scolds. His eyebrows are furrowed as he begins his T, a precise, heavy-handed swipe over and then a burning drag down. “Why were you so worried about me becoming a herald?”

Jacob doesn't want to have this conversation, but seeing as Staci literally has a knife to his chest—

Fuck it, he 'd carve out his heart for Staci, willingly and happily gifting it to him with a blood-stained grin. What's _talking_ going to do? It's not like he can get any deeper into this, anyway. Staci already owns all of him, more than Jacob had even intended.

“Didn't want you so far away. Worried—fuck—that the distance would make you see that you can do better than me.” The blood pooling in his collarbones drips further upward as Staci starts on his A, collecting along his throat, against his Adam's apple, darkening his beard.

A bright, alluring swathe of red across his throat, dripping down either side of the column of his neck, sticky and hot and wet. Not quite the slit throat Staci had longed for ages ago, a razor in hand and terror in his gut, but it's the closest he'll come to it now.

“Always could've, especially now—so Strong, Staci. Stronger than I could've ever foreseen.” Jacob turns his head to the side, eyes fluttering closed as the C in Staci's name is carved into him. The press of Staci's knife is biting in deeper, cutting further into him than John and even Tammy had. The ache of it has him shuddering, wondering if Staci's hand might actually slip and he'll cut clean through to Jacob's heart.

Staci scoffs above him. His eyes have finally dried, tears burnt away by tempered irritation and love. “Does your hearing not work? What part of _Yours_ hasn't registered to you? Do you think—do you think there's really anyone else out there for me? You break it, you _buy_ it, Jacob—I'm it. This is it.”

Staci gestures between them with the knife, flicking blood onto both of their faces.

“Neither of us are getting out of this alive.”

Jacob shudders again, beneath the pulsing sting of his wounds, beneath Staci's sure, quiet words.

“But given the choice, you might—” Jacob begins.

“There's never been any _choice_. You never gave me one, not - not really. But it's my turn, isn't it?” The letter I is carved beside the rest of Staci's name, a simple pull of the knife's edge down, down. Just a flick of the wrist and Jacob's skin opens for him.

He can see into Jacob's chest through the slash of the I for just a moment, the too bright pink of muscle soon washed out, overtaken by dark, gleaming crimson.

“You never gave me one,” Staci says again, quieter, like he's distracted. Idly he admires his handiwork, fingertips reverent as they skim over bloody, jagged flesh. The size of STACI embedded into Jacob's skin catches the eye almost as much as MONSTER does.

It's fitting, really, that his eye is first attracted to MONSTER and then his own name.

Jacob's a MONSTER. Jacob is _Staci's_ monster.

Staci's a monster in and of himself, now.

“So you don't get one either.” There's a hardness in his eyes that Jacob's never seen before, like the prolonged trauma he's endured and the misery of love swirling around inside of Staci has been cemented by Joseph's promotion.

Finally a mostly steady foundation for this Thing between them, blood- and tear-stained as it is.

Emboldened and messed up and in love, Staci continues, “Do you really think there's anyone else out there for you? Or that anyone else in this fucked up world could see the mess you've made of me and _want_ me the way you do? We've broken each other down, Jacob. Both of us. Me in the obvious way, but you—you've not come out of this unscathed.”

Staci splays his fingers across his name as if to prove his point, and watches as the blood creeps up between his fingers, sticky and warm. With his free hand, he lifts Jacob's right from Staci's hip and sets it on Jacob's name, carved into Staci's chest.

Jacob's hand shakes minutely as he presses against the wound, and the sheer vulnerability in Jacob's eyes, the love and _submission_ , has Staci shuddering and rolling his hips.

“All that remains of me won't fit with anyone else, and I wouldn't _let_ anyone else try to fit with yours.”

“I wouldn't choose anyone else,” Jacob tells him fervently. He rolls his hips upward and groans quietly, basking in the throbbing in his chest and the warming between his thighs.

“Neither would I. It's a good thing, too, seeing as there aren't any other options. Just you and me, Jacob. Just you and me.”

Staci leans forward to kiss him, presses his aching, throbbing chest against Jacob's. The blood he had flicked from the knife and onto their faces works its way into their mouths as they frantically trade kisses and rock into each other. One of Jacob's hands is curled tightly at the base of Staci's skull, his hair fisted in Jacob's grip, while the other steadily urges Staci's hips into his own, controlling their movement.

“Pants, Peaches. Fucking pants, get them off,” Jacob hisses. When Staci lifts himself off of Jacob's chest, Jacob furiously attacks the clasp of his belt. By the time Jacob's managed to wrestle it and his jeans open, Staci is scrabbling to his feet to remove both his shoes and bottoms.

In a flash, Jacob is up off the floor, shepherding a naked Staci back and onto their bed. Once there, Jacob makes quick work of his boots—not having another repeat of being bound by them and his jeans in the truck bed, no fucking sir—before hastily pushing his pants to the ground to pool at his feet.

“Wanna watch you prepare yourself for me,” Jacob says, his voice heavy and full, lustful. He gives himself a few cursory strokes as Staci shudders and flings a hand blindly downward, towards the bottle of lube they had left on the floor. The sound he makes when he can't find it is primal, agonized, but before he can surge up and properly retrieve it, Jacob is pressing it into his hand as he crawls onto the bed to watch.

“This what you want?” Staci asks. He pours lube messily into his hand as he wantonly spreads his legs. It's cool to the touch as he hastily presses two fingers into himself, scissoring as soon as the dull burn dissipates a little and his insides have some give to them. He doesn't have time for slow, needs it now now now, before the desperation and love and need burning through his body scorches him up.

“S'all I want,” Jacob tells him, enraptured. He scoots up towards Staci's bent knees and watches Staci work himself open. With reverent fingers, he trails his blood stained touch against Staci's perineum, right above where Staci's fingers furiously drive inside himself over and over.

In a frenzy of motion, Staci pulls his fingers out of his body and blindly reaches forward for Jacob's dick. With the left over slick shining on his hand, he slides his grip up and down Jacob's shaft, gently dragging his thumbnail down the vein snaking around it as Jacob hisses and groans.

After adding a little more lubricant, Jacob chucks the closed bottle into the mess of sheets beside them and positions himself at Staci's entrance, one of Staci's legs snug over his shoulder while the other wraps itself loose around Jacob's hips.

Staci digs his heel into the meat of Jacob's ass, impatient. “C'mon, _move_ ,” he whines.

“Pushy, pushy,” Jacob mocks. He pushes forward anyway, breaching Staci's body with a hand circled around the base of his cock, the other one pressing firmly down on Staci's still bleeding brand.

It burns, bright and white against Staci's closed eyelids. He hisses through it, wriggling downward as Jacob impales him. He sets his own hand against Jacob's etching, fingertips catching and slipping in the oozing mess he's made on Jacob's scarred chest.

“Perfect. So beautiful, fuck.” Jacob folds his body forward, trying to get them as close as he can. Can't quite reach Staci's lips from the angle he's at, so he settles for kissing along the bloody ridge of Staci's collarbone, his forehead tucked against Staci's throat. “No choice, God. Only you—never stood a chance against you. Had to have you.”

Staci whines against the top of Jacob's head, auburn hair tickling his face. He rolls his hips to meet Jacob's powerful thrusts, steadying a hand on Jacob's own hip in efforts to keep himself from flying off the handle. The bed frame's knocking against the wall again, pressing into the dips in the drywall left by some of their previous sessions.

“Mine, baby. Mine, mine, mine.” Even with the hand on Jacob's hip, the next series of deep, punishing thrusts has Staci scooting up the bed and biting hard into his cheek to keep from crying out with it. The drag of Jacob's cut stomach against Staci's shaft gives him much needed friction, and the added sensation has his toes curling, his eyes beginning to roll into the back of his head.

His body sings with pleasure, like a tuning fork forcibly struck. It vibrates through him, tingling in Staci's toes and creeping up his legs. Concentrated where they're joined, in the aching fullness seated inside Staci's body. Then up, up, up the roaring, building warmness in Staci's gut and the stinging, throbbing carving above Staci's heart.

The press of his fingertips into Jacob's hip and the drag of the points of nails into his flesh syncs up with the stinging in Jacob's chest. He lets it wash over him, pain-pleasure, pleasure-pain, basking in it until all Jacob can sense is the righteous, inextricable mixture of the two crashing over him with each drag of his cock in and out of Staci's body.

“Gonna - gonna come, fuck,” Staci hisses, rubbing his cock against the trail of hair running down the trunk of Jacob's body. Precum glistens against Jacob's abs, smeared near his belly button, steadily leaking from Staci as he undulates his body to meet Jacob's thrust and then up to get more friction on his aching cock.

Jacob takes pity on him and wraps a hand around Staci's shaft, jerking him to the punishing pace he's set with his hips. The added level of sensation has Staci shivering, breathing hard against the top of Jacob's head, and with a few quiet, punched out moans Staci comes hard in Jacob's grip, seed dripping down Jacob's fingers and onto his stomach.

The velvety, wet-hot grip of Staci rhythmically clenching around him has Jacob following soon after. He pumps his own release into Staci, fucks it so far up into him he hopes Staci can taste it.

Panting and smeared with blood, they stay connected until they catch their breath. Then with care they begin extracting themselves, first lowering Staci's legs and then easing Jacob out from inside Staci's abused hole.

“We should probably shower,” Jacob idly muses, pressing his fingers inside. When Staci hisses at him and makes to kick him, he catches Staci's ankle before he can connect and presses a kiss into his calf, still watching his fingers sink in and out.

“Jacob!” Staci wails, trying to shake Jacob's hand off him and his fingers _out_. He's so sensitive, shivering with it as Jacob's thick, heavy fingers drag over his walls, pressing down on his prostate.

He's both frustrated and relieved when Jacob withdrawals his fingers. He eyes the hand Jacob offers him, finger shiny with lube and Jacob's own semen.

“No, really. We should shower. If Joe finds us like this—”

Staci takes his hand. “Please don't talk about your brother right now.”

Jacob ignores the petty glee that runs through him at Staci's words. He yolks Staci up to his feet, stabilizing him as his knees falter on him.

“Shower,” Jacob hums. “And maybe some gauze?”

-

Joseph gives them a few hours before going to them again.

He knocks on the door three times with one hand as he carefully holds a tray in the other. A peace offering of sorts, one large plate loaded with bread and roasted meats, and one canteen of water. The pair had stormed off shortly after Joseph's impromptu speech-slash-proposition and hadn't resurfaced yet, so Joseph figured he'd do the brotherly thing and bring them a meal to make up for the ones they'd missed, for the breakfast they'd barely gotten to eat.

If he also gets to scope out their headspace while he's at it, well...that's just an added, unforeseen bonus.

He can hear talking, just barely. Their gentle conversing comes to a halt after the third knock of Joseph's knuckles against wood.

“Come,” Jacob's voice calls after a moment's pause, short and clipped. The conversation picks back up, faster but quieter now, so Joseph has an even harder time making it out. It sounds like distant, gentle buzzing from where he stands.

Things should not be kept private or secret from him, and when he knocks someone should fly over to him to gratefully accept the gift of his presence. Joseph lets the irritation that washes over him roll off his shoulders. It's to be expected that things will be stiff between at least he and Jacob for a while, and while it's Jacob's foolish Pride getting in the way, Jacob is but a Man. He can be forgiven of this sin, this insolence, given that he comes around again.

Joseph takes a deep, steadying breath before he turns the knob with his free hand and pushes it open with his hip.

The conversation dies again, but Joseph doesn't even notice it, too swept away by the overbearing stench of blood. It's in his mouth, even in the doorway, even with his fragrant offering still steaming in his hand, like he's got a penny stuck beneath his tongue. Bright and oh so sharp, the iron rich smell of it so strong Joseph has to forcibly steady himself against it.

There's not even the scent he noticed earlier, hours ago, Jacob and Staci's scents heady and complimentary as they mixed together in their shared space.

Jacob and Staci both are seated behind Jacob's desk, pressed shoulder to shoulder. Their outfits are clean, different from the ones they had worn during breakfast, and their hair is wet, recently washed, but Joseph can't make out the smell of their soap nor shampoo over the iron still hanging thickly in his nose.

He can't see any noticeable wounds, no busted lips or black eyes or bloody knuckles on either of them, though their lips are slightly kiss-puffy and Staci's got two faint marks on his cheeks, like dark rouge he's forgotten to wash off.

Based on the strength of the smell, it had to have been a decent amount of blood, so wounds should be _visible_ on one or the other unless they killed someone else.

It wouldn't surprise Joseph, not really.

“Joseph,” Jacob says in greeting, voice perfunctory and blank. Pissed at him for the foreseeable future, no doubt, but Jacob will play nice, be respectful. Has no other choice, really.

As Joseph moves into the room, he finds where the blood must've been spilled—there's a series of new dark stains on the concrete in front of the balcony doors, all of them larger than the old, tiny swathe of blood near the radiator.

There's a lot of negative space between the stains, like there had been something between the pools preventing them from forming one huge spilling. A body, most likely, though Joseph isn't sure whose. Some of the stains even look like hand prints. Even from a distance, Joseph can make out the smear of fingers, long and thin above the solid press of the palm of a hand.

It looks like there had been an attempt to clean it up, but the unsealed flooring had already hungrily soaked up the bulk of it.

Joseph looks away from it with a raised brow. “Thought you all might be hungry.”

There's quiet challenge in Jacob's eye as Joseph proceeds into the room. Staci nudges him gently and says back, “Thank you.”

None of them say anything as Joseph finishes crossing the distance between them and sits his offering on the edge of the desk. The clutter on its face has been pushed to the sides to make room for a map, which Jacob and Staci had been going over before Joseph's interruption. It's a map of John's territory—Staci's now. There's writing in the margins that Joseph doesn't recognize, not Jacob's tight block letters or Staci's loose, lazy half cursive.

“It's from the Wolf's Den,” Staci tells him, noticing the way Joseph is studying the foreign map. “Brought it with me when we escaped.”

“How fortuitous,” Joseph answers, taking a seat where he had hours ago. He notes with amusement that Jacob won't look directly at him. “I wonder what the you then would think about the you now—Herald of Holland Valley.”

Staci snorts. It's loose, undignified and unselfconscious The small smile he offers Joseph is tired but true, and holds none of the venom Jacob's forced one would. “He would've thought he was Blissed out of his skull, on the road to becoming an Angel or some shit.”

Joseph hums. “It's funny how things work out, isn't it? How the suffering we endure is rewarded with love and power.” He looks from Staci to Jacob and back, offering his own small smile. “When will you head off for Seed Ranch?”

“In the new year,” Jacob says, voice firm. He looks up and holds Joseph's gaze until Joseph's smile grows a little and he nods at his older brother. Jacob's got no reason to believe Joseph won't try and meddle until then, but they should have a bit of a reprieve for the meanwhile, seeing as Joseph's already gotten what he wanted.

“The new year,” Joseph echoes. “I've already had the Faithful clear it of its few remaining Resistance members. All it needs now is its new master.”

Jacob clears his throat and looks over Joseph's shoulder. There's a question on the tip of his tongue, Joseph can see it, but he's hesitating for some reason.

“Speak your mind, Brother,” Joseph urges.

“I'm going to be spending most nights at the Ranch. We'll stay here sometimes, too, but—” There's a blush creeping up Jacob's throat, pinkening his cheeks beneath his scars. He clears his throat again, embarrassed. Says more forcefully than he means, “He'll run the Valley and I'll run the Mountains, but we won't separate.”

Joseph chooses to not acknowledge the challenging aggression in Jacob's tone, for Jacob's sake. “But of course, Brother,” he placates. He sweeps his hands in front of his chest, indicating Jacob and Staci. “The goal was never to separate, but to empower—both Staci and the Family.”

To take the sting out of Jacob's words, Staci steps in. He drags his eyes away from Jacob's face and says around his heart in his throat, “Thank you, Father.”

“Thank _you_ , Deputy Pratt.” Joseph's blue eyes twinkle with amusement as he studies them. Even with Jacob's gentle insolence, he looks very much like the cat who got the canary. “We will baptize you in the new year. I don't believe my brother had planned that far ahead, but to be a Herald, to be an extension of my hand, I will need you reborn in Christ. Traditionally we'd to this in one of the rivers or lakes, but with the weather a pool will have to suffice. Luckily, there's one at the Ranch.”

“If John could hear you say _that_ ,” Jacob huffs, amused despite himself. When Joseph had found the pool in the basement of John's ranch, huge and lavish, he had almost had a stroke. It had taken John and Jacob a while to calm him down, to get him to stop raving about Gluttony this and Sloth that—and with the promise that the pool would be used for baptisms in the off-season, Joseph had finally conceded.

“Yes, well.” Joseph wrinkles his nose and gestures at the tray, pushes it forward towards them with his fingertips. “Some things turn out to be more useful than originally foreseen, don't they?”

Jacob reaches for a piece of meat and pops it into his mouth, eyes cut over to Staci. “I guess some things do,” he murmurs, and watches the color bloom high across Staci's cheeks.

-

“Fucking _snow_ , God dammit. This is taking forever.”

“It's January in Montana, Jacob, what do you expect? Without MDOT out here to professionally plow the roads, we're gonna have to get used to this. Besides, we're almost there.”

Jacob rolls his eyes and tightens his grip on the steering wheel.

The new year has rolled on in, and with it more fucking snow. They've started sending out Family trucks every other day or so to plow the main streets between Compounds, but even then the accumulation between plowings is great enough to almost entirely undo their work.

As it stands now, Jacob's Jeep is crawling at a snail's pace behind one such re-purposed truck, watching as its plow displaces the snow around them.

At least it's beautiful out here, with the snow covered mountains at their back and the land around them blanketed in shimmering white, pristine even with the sparse animal tracks looping through it. It gives him something to look at while they inch along. Jacob's not used to traveling in it much, used to being tucked away in his Compound until it thaws and travel is easy again.

But this is his life, now. The first day of the rest of it. Joseph's already at the Ranch, and has been there for the last handful of days preparing for Staci's arrival.

He had called before Jacob and Staci had left, while they were still in bed. Jacob's old Nokia phone ringing shrilly until he had fished it off the bedside table and barked into it a tired _What?_

“Rise and shine, Brother,” Joseph's voice purred, “we're ready for him.”

That had been almost three hours ago. It had taken them a little less than an hour to finish loading the Jeep and dolling out orders to the Faithful remaining at St. Francis's in Jacob's absence, while the rest of it had been spent on the road, Jacob bitching about the snow and Staci bitching back.

Staci had been right, though, they are getting close. Even with the snow obscuring most of the surrounding area, Jacob can make out familiar tree formations and signage indicating that they're about half an hour away from Seed Ranch. In this weather, it'll probably take them twice that at least.

Jacob clears his throat. He can feel Staci's eyes on him, soft and amused, slightly squinted under the bright white gleaming all around them.

“Things are going to be...different,” Jacob begins. The words leave him haltingly, like he's unsure how to properly get his meaning across. His fingers flutter against the steering wheel, tapping unevenly against the ridged rubber of his hand grip.

Staci turns his body towards Jacob and waits for him to continue.

“Joseph is—Joseph. He's going to be outwardly supportive, maybe even _actually_ supportive but...just watch out, okay? He's not afraid to play dirty to get what he wants. He did it with John, he does it with me and Faith, and he'll do it with you, too. He knows how important you are, to me and to the Faithful back Home, and he won't hesitate to use that as leverage against us.” To occupy his nervous hands, Jacob fiddles with the heating knob on the dash, then the settings on the Jeep's windshield wipers.

There's tension in his shoulders, in the corded muscles of his forearms. Staci wonders if Jacob had been worried about this all along, dreading Joseph using Staci against him but still powerless to stop what Jacob himself had put into motion. He's learned a little about Joseph holding Staci's impeding heraldry over Jacob's head, using it as a leash almost, but Jacob has been hesitant to go into too much detail. Loyal and conflicted.

“He'll probably drop by a lot once the thaw comes. Just—just be careful, okay? Watch how you speak and act with him. He means well most of the time, he's my brother, I love him, but—” Jacob sounds like he's trying to convince himself as much as Staci. Staci takes pity on him and reaches across the dash, squeezing Jacob's thigh like Jacob had done to him so many times before.

“Never forget that Joseph is the Father. Never forget that his only true allegiance is to God. He loves us, but we're chess pieces to him.”

The silence that follows isn't exactly comfortable, but it carries them through the remainder of their drive—Staci's hand on Jacob's thigh, both of Jacob's on the wheel. It takes a little under forty-five minutes to get there, but it's better time than Jacob had expected. The roads nearest Seed Ranch had already been plowed, and it hadn't taken long for the truck before them to shovel away the newest accumulation.

Staci's never been to John's Ranch, but had seen pictures of it way back when, when John had gotten building permits for it after having bought up the surrounding land. The pictures have nothing on the reality of it, though, especially in the snow. The place is beautiful, fucking huge. It's one of the nicest personal lodgings Staci's ever seen, and the fact that it's _his_ now makes his heart pound in his chest.

The bright white of the snow makes the redwood of the Ranch and its surrounding buildings pop in a way the carefully sprawling cobblestone walkways never could, their tones complimentary but the beige not as eye catching as the crisp white snow piled on sections of manicured lawn, on the rooftops. The walkways and stairs have been swept mostly clean of snow by the Faithful that idly patrol the premises, rifles in gloved hands.

Jacob parks his Jeep beside a cluster of Family trucks and sighs.

“Ready to be baptized?” Jacob asks.

“I've already been baptized,” Staci returns quietly. When he gets a look from Jacob, Staci sighs. “My Abuela—she was - is Catholic. I've even been Confirmed, but that was mostly because she would've lost her mind if I hadn't been.”

“I didn't know that,” Jacob says quietly, absentmindedly watching the Faithful from their procession leave their cars and proceed towards the Ranch.

“There's a lot about me you don't know, Jacob. There's a lot about _you_ that _I_ don't know—tons and tons of stuff. We've got nothing but time, Jacob. If this is going to work—we - we should probably get to know each other better.” Staci squeezes Jacob's thigh and then slowly retracts his hand.

“We weren't born here,” Jacob blurts out. He shifts in his seat, apparently embarrassed by his random outburst. Trudges on, even with a furrow in his brow. “We, uh—we're originally from Georgia.”

Staci blinks at him, hand stilled on the release button for his seat belt. “Oh?”

All of the air leaves Jacob's lungs in a rushing sigh. He scrubs a hand down his face, scratches his nails through his beard. “Can I just write all of this shit down and give it to you?”

The spreading warmth in Staci's chest has him cutting his eyes away, blushing and fighting a smile. He releases his seat belt and makes a show of cracking his back and popping his shoulders. He can feel Jacob's eyes on his skin as his shirt raises a little, but does nothing to acknowledge Jacob or the question he had just posed.

With the door open, Staci finally answers, “No. We've got nothing but time, Jacob—you'll find a way to weave this stuff in.”

-

Staci can immediately see why Joseph had had a problem with John's pool.

The room where the baptism is to be held is massive, taking up at least half of the Ranch's basement level. It's got the same rustic-but-modern style the rest of the Ranch does, with tasteful red wood paneling and exposed rock walls, but instead of taxidermy and bookshelves, there's a lavish half kitchen, an expensive looking patio table-and-chair set, and an Olympic sized pool taking up most of the room.

The air smells faintly of chlorine, like the previous pool water had been heavily treated but had been drained and replaced with clean, fresh water. Staci figures that was probably Joseph's doing, to ensure the water was as close to river water standards as he could make it.

Staci watches his reflection in the water as he awaits the arrival of the rest of their group. He was too young to remember his own baptism, but he'd seen other people get baptized before—infants and Born Agains and people who had simply never had the Rite performed—and now here, in Seed Ranch, he wonders how different Joseph's will be. He's already comparing what he can recall from other baptisms to what's happening thus far.

Joseph had wordlessly given him a set of simple, clean white garments, and while not the type his grandmother's own Catholic church encouraged, they're close enough. They don't fit him very well, the drawstring of his pants yolked tight around his hips to keep them from falling, and the shirt is a little tight across his chest, but he won't be needing them for long.

Long enough for Joseph to say whatever rites he sees fit and to dunk him beneath the water, to drown what remains of the old Staci Pratt and kill him once and for all.

He can see people entering the room in the reflection on the water, Faith and some privileged Chosen from each compound coming in to watch steadily trickling into the sprawling, beautiful space. The Chosen post themselves along the walls, talking quietly, eagerly among themselves. One or two meet his eyes and smile fondly, and he nervously smiles back at them, blushing.

Joseph and Jacob will probably enter last, no doubt somewhere passive aggressively bickering.

Faith's at his side in an instant, her arm making its familiar trek into the bend of Staci's own. “Excited?” she asks, pressed tight against him. Even with the weather outside being as cold as it is, she's in her trademark lace and flowers, her feet bare. “Finally getting the recognition you deserve, Peaches.”

His cheeks warm further. “Yeah, I guess.”

“Are you nervous?” Her hazel eyes are wide and worried, searching his face keenly. “It's beautiful, I assure you. Let the Father's voice and the water take you, I promise you'll be safe.”

Safe? Staci hasn't truly been safe in nearly a year, but he doesn't contest her words. This is his new normal, after all, a life that by now he's willingly signed up for. He just sighs and lets her comfort him the way she sees fit. He opens his mouth to confide in her about his fears about becoming a Herald, but he can hear Jacob's voice in his head cautioning him against trusting anyone but him with the full truth.

Staci likes Faith, trusts her more than Joseph, even, but he doesn't know her well enough to give her any more ammunition against him than she already has. Delilah and her pregnancy, and Staci's firm, swift ending of both, will occasionally pop into his thoughts unbridled, and just the thought that there's a loose end lingering around gets him jumpy when those thoughts crop up.

Maybe in time he'll come to know her, to trust her more.

“Just a little nervous, yeah, but I'm sure it'll be fine,” he tells her, and it's not entirely a lie. He _is_ nervous about the baptism, but it's more complicated than just that.

“It _will be_ fine.” She tugs his arm a little, has him turning so he's tucked into her.

A new wave of people enter the pool room. Staci can see them entering over Faith's shoulder, more Chosen that he doesn't know. But then there's Joseph, and swiftly after him Jacob.

Jacob's dressed in the clothes he wore on the drive over, dark jeans and his combat boots and a long-sleeved sienna henley. Its buttons are undone, showcasing the center of his MONSTER brand and the chain of his dog tags, for once tucked into his shirt. Staci feels his eyes drift to where he knows his own name is carved, STACI freshly healed and still a bright, vivid angry pink against Jacob's pale, marred skin.

Joseph is wearing similar garbs to Staci, himself, but instead of ill-fitting white pants, he's got his usual tight black trousers and trademark yellow glasses. It's weird seeing his feet bare, long and delicate like the rest of him, slapping softly against the beige cobblestone tiling. It's almost too human, too removed from the larger than life persona the Father typically bears.

Joseph is at his side first. He grins, heartened by the sight of his family congregating for something as holy as a baptism.

“Are we ready, Staci?” he asks.

With a confirming glance at Jacob, Staci nods and says, “Yes.”

Joseph takes Staci by the elbow when Faith gracefully drops his arm and takes a step back, coming to rest shoulder to shoulder with Jacob beside the lip of the pool. He leads him to the pools steps and snorts when Staci hisses at the first touch of ice-cold water against his ankle.

“We sought to make the water as clean and pure as we could. Brought in some snow from the outside. The pool's heated, but I guess the last addition of snow was too recent to properly heat all the way.” Steadily Joseph ushers him into the water, his expression unfazed and serene.

Staci's teeth want to chatter. He can feel his nipples hardening, feel his balls threaten to crawl inside his body and never come back down when they proceed down the last set of stairs and he finds himself in water just passed his crotch.

It's more and more manageable the further they go in, and by the time the water's just passed his waist, water lapping at his chest where the lowest of his ribs reside, Staci's managed to coax his body into behaving.

Being dunked is going to be a _bitch,_ though.

“Family!” Joseph's voice booms, echoing within the huge room. The Chosen in attendance have followed Faith and Jacob's leads and have come to stand around the pool themselves, watching raptly as their Father begins their Baptismal Rite.

“This is Staci Pratt, and he comes before us and God to be baptized into Christ,” Joseph says. He grips Staci's shoulder and squeezes him once reassuringly, but doesn't remove his hand. Staci concentrates on the wetness seeping into his shirt from Joseph's wet hand, from the water lapping at his stomach, instead of all of the eyes on them.

 _This is where the Good Confession should start_ , Staci thinks.

“Staci, please repeat after me the words of the Good Confession. The Family gathered here today in support of you shall repeat the words as you do, understand?” Joseph asks. When Staci nods, Joseph begins again.

“I believe.” A pause. Staci and the Family echo his words, bold and unified. “That Jesus is the Christ.” Jacob's voice stands out the most, deep and familiar in its rumbling. “The Son of the Living God.” Joseph's hand squeezes again. “My Lord, my Savior.”

“Staci, I now baptize you in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, for the forgiveness of your sins, and the gift of the Holy Spirit. You will from here on out be our Family, be our Herald of Holland Valley. You will act as a bastion of righteousness for all of our Faithful to turn to, and for the unfaithful to run from. You will act as an extension of me, as an extension of God, and help the Family secure its place at Eden's Gates.”

The hand against the top of his chest is damp but warm from contact with Staci's shoulder. It presses solidly against him, urging him backward. Staci closes his eyes and holds his breath, and allows himself to be lowered into the water.

It's so fucking cold beneath the water. Staci wills his body pliant and loose as Joseph holds him under. Lets himself be lulled by the water, by the murky, distant sound of Joseph's voice as he speaks to the Family around him. It's cold but it's nice, removed and calm in the way that being submerged always is—peaceful and free from everything else but the water and the water alone.

Most baptisms are a simple dunk and pull, but Joseph keeps him under until his chest is almost burning with it. When he breaches the surface again, he takes deep, greedy lungfuls of air into his mouth, trying to be as disciplined about it as possible.

“Welcome home,” Joseph whispers, his hand snaking up to rest on his shoulder again. His sunglasses are spotted with water, his shirt soaked through. Staci can make out the scars and tattoos beneath the now sheer material of his top, and from the way that Joseph's eyes zero in on Staci's chest, Staci knows Joseph can see Jacob's name etched into his skin.

Joseph says nothing more, but there's something in the way he looks at Staci after, something in the way he squeezes his shoulder to the point of pain, that lets Staci know there's a lot going on within the Father's head. Jealousy, maybe, not of their relationship in particular but because it's not his name, not the Father's, proclaiming ownership of a member of his flock.

Staci's not stupid enough to ask for clarification, to draw more attention to Jacob's name carved into the meat of him. He lets himself be shepherded to the stairs and back onto the tiling surrounding the pool. The water makes his already too loose pants sag almost obscenely, and he fights to keep them upright as he's congratulated and welcomed by the Chosen and the Seeds alike. Focuses on that instead of Joseph's eyes on the side of his face.

-

Jacob spends more nights at the Ranch than he does at St. Francis's by a long shot. By mid April, Staci can count the number of nights Jacob's left his side on both hands. Each and every time Staci offers to go with him, sometimes almost begging Jacob to let him go, to free him from the stressful confines of rebuilding the region for even one night, but Jacob always shushes him and tells him he's got more important things to do here.

Jacob comes back to him each time he leaves by himself looking like he used to, warn down and haggard and powered entirely by caffeine and force of will. Snippy and short with everyone around until Staci manages to convince him to take a nap in their new bed, pressed tight to Staci's back. It's the same old song and dance every time— _I'm fucking fine, Peaches. Jesus Christ. / You sure? Because you sound like a toddler who needs a nap, Jacob. / And you sound like a nagging bitch—where are you going? / If you're not gonna take a nap, I will. Jesus._

Staci imagines him in their old room, staring out the window beside the patio doors. Strong, scarred forearms braced on the sill, bathed in moonlight. Blue eyes looking out into the distance, like he can see the Ranch from way back at St. Francis's.

He calls most of those nights and leaves Staci on speakerphone until the early morning, sometimes just to hear Staci breathing, as he goes about doing whatever dragged him away in the first place. It's mostly the same stuff he does back in Holland Valley, seated at a desk across from Staci, but to be the Whitetails' Herald he does have to occasionally return to them.

When Jacob attempts to sleep on those nights, he has his nightmares again, more vicious and vivid and cruel than any time prior, warped and wrong but taunting all the same—being unable to truly kill Miller in the desert, eating chunks of his flesh while milky white eyes and sunburnt, cracked lips taunt him mercilessly, _Hey, Jake, what the fuck are y'doing?_ ; Old Man Seed beating him mercilessly while Jacob sobs, Joseph and John limp and lifeless on the floor at his feet; the barn fire raging, raging, trapping him inside, burning more than just his face and right side, the roar of it and his own screams drowning out the desperate wails of his Brothers trying to get to him.

He tends to average even less sleep than he used to when he attempts to lay down without Staci, and each time finds him startled awake. Heart pounding and chest heaving, hands sometimes shaking. He smokes those nights, sucking away at the filter of cigarette after cigarette, leg bouncing as he tries to work through the dull ache in his chest and the tired stinging in his eyes.

Staci doesn't tend to remember his own dreams, and he's desperately relieved by the fact. He can imagine what his brain cooks up for him when he's at his most vulnerable just fine—his father, creeping into his room at night before his grandmother had obtained custody of him; his Abuela finding out about Jacob and what Staci's done, what's been done _to_ him, and weeping and raging but still disowning him; Eli Palmer's bruised, broken neck, and the smoking bullet hole smack dab between Tammy Barnes' eyes; Delilah screaming as she burns and burns, a baby crying in the distance, hazy and far away; the Junior Deputy's listless, milky eyes staring at him, her head shaved bald and her body sparkling with green, stinking of Bliss—and is glad that he doesn't have to face his own private demons in a place he cannot control.

Neither of them sleep well apart from the other, and they usually don't try.

-

Jacob's been gone for three hours already and hasn't called him yet. Sometimes it takes longer, sometimes Jacob will will himself inward and try to stomach the separation, and Staci hates those nights the most. He usually spends them at his desk in his study, absently chewing on the end of a cheap pen as he looks over paperwork.

One of his Chosen will pop their head in, offer him a kind smile and food or beverage. Most of the Faithful he's got with him came from Fall's End. There's the lot from Jacob's that Staci had personally lead through the Training, as well as the small group from the Conversion vans sent off for destinations unknown.

They had ended up with Joseph, and though they bare no outward marks or signs of trauma, their sugary sweet devotion rubs him wrong until he dulls it a little, bends it to better suit his needs.

He's got some of John's Faithful, too. John's Second tends to shadow him a lot, expression conflicted like he expects John to walk through the door at any moment. He's loyal, they all are, but they're more vicious, colder than the ones Staci had personally Trained, than the ones Joseph had Converted. Staci tends to send them away, to keep their hands active as to not let them idle.

No one comes to him, though, and Jacob doesn't call.

Staci spends the majority of the night reading through text he immediately forgets, and biting at his pen until it snaps and begins leaking ink into his mouth. With dark blue staining his lips, stinging bitterly in his mouth, Staci drags himself to his master suite and throws himself on his too big bed.

The sheets smell like them, woodsy and clean like the soap Jacob favors.

He presses Jacob's pillow to his chest and falls asleep with a frown on his face. He doesn't dream, and when he wakes in the morning, he feels even more exhausted than when he laid down.

-

Jacob's been gone for two days, and Staci's freaking the fuck out.

No one knows where he is, just that he told one of his top ranking Hunters that he'd be back as soon as possible. No mission parameters, no timeline, nothing. Everything could be going according to Jacob's plan, but it could all be going to shit, too. Staci doesn't know, no one does.

Jacob could be dead in a ditch somewhere, his Jeep wrapped around a tree. Could be strung up in the Grove with his bare feet in another kiddie pool and more electricity coursing through his body.

Schrodinger's Herald. In Staci's head, Jacob's both alive and dead, and he won't know truly which one he is until the asshole resurfaces.

The asshole didn't even say _goodbye_. Staci's gonna fucking kill him when he returns.

His skin itches whenever he thinks about it, has him absently raking his nails up his arms, up his throat. He's drawn blood a few times without realizing it. Fingertips sticky and wet, the smell of iron in the air.

Fucking separation anxiety, like he's one of Jacob's God damn judges. Losing his God damn mind because when he sleeps he doesn't actually _sleep_ , it's like his body initiates the sleeping process, but instead of letting him recharge he just idles. His battery drains and he rises from his bed like the dead a handful of hours later, head foggy and body sluggish. Exhausted, the bags beneath his eyes seem to darken every hour, angry and black like body bags.

He hasn't been separated from Jacob this long since the Wolf's Den, and luckily for him he was passed the hell out the entire time.

Staci calls the number for Jacob's Nokia and it rings and rings damningly in his ear.

-

By the fourth day, Faith's in his study trying to drug him.

“I'm going to fucking _kill him_ when he gets back.” Staci's pacing a rut in the carpeting but doesn't care. He tugs at his hair as he completes another circuit and swings back around.

“I'm sure he's fine,” Faith says, but she's been saying that since she got there yesterday morning, and she sounds more and more unsure with each repetition of the platitude.

One of Staci's Faithful had called and asked for her help, knowing that they were close. They hadn't wanted to involve the Father just yet and Faith had been relieved to hear it. Before the phone call, Faith had assumed that Jacob had already returned, and she guessed that the Father believed the same thing, too.

Jacob's Faithful were stupidly loyal like that, had probably been told to tell everyone he had returned in the vaguest way possible to keep suspicion off him.

Staci's gonna kill them, too.

It's better that Joseph not know, that he assumes Jacob is going about his business normally, flitting between the Valley and the Mountains. If he's gone much longer, though, someone somewhere will slip up and it'll get out that the Herald in the Mountains is MIA.

Maybe one of Staci's own Faithful will let it slip that the Herald in the Valley is having a nervous breakdown.

“You need to _sleep_ ,” Faith tells him, trying to keep her voice quiet and neutral. She watches Staci nervously move with pity from where she stands leaning against the side of his desk. “You're running yourself into the ground.”

“I'm gonna put him in the ground,” he mumbles. He stops near long coffee table situated between two black leather sofas, the ones Jacob had sadly told him still smelled like John, like his beard oil and his expensive cologne. After a moment of staring at them, he buries his face in his hands. “I try to sleep and it _doesn't work_ , Faith.”

“Would you let me give you something, just for the night?” She moves across the room as she speaks, trying to broadcast her movements without beating him over the head with them. He still startles when she gets to him, like he hadn't heard a word she said. “Look at you, Peaches. Let me help.”

“You can help by getting Jacob back.” Staci doesn't fight her when she resolutely leads him away, her hand soft and warm tucked into his elbow. The trek from his study to the bedroom feels like it takes hours, like it takes all of the remaining energy in his body and uses it up.

He's pliant like a doll, like an exhausted child, as she maneuvers him out of his shoes and onto his back. The sheets beneath him no longer smell like he and Jacob, just Staci.

She presses two pills against his lips, seemingly out of thin air, but maybe she had them the whole time. Details filter in through his senses but abandon him right after, like sand falling through his fingers. They sit heavily on his tongue for a moment, chalky and bitter and huge, before he dry swallows them. His throat clicks around them and their acrid taste, but he's too drained to even complain about it.

“Good boy,” she whispers. Her hand's in his hair, petting down the side of it. Staci doesn't remember it getting there.

“Since when does Bliss come in capsules?” Staci asks.

“It doesn't,” she says simply. “I used to use them to help me sleep through withdrawal pain. They're strong, they should knock you out pretty soon.” Faith carefully pushes aside memories from her past and focuses on the here and now, on Staci's too large, too empty bed, and the exhausted sadness bruised into his face.

“Stay with me? Maybe I'll sleep if there's someone with me.” His eyelids already feel heavy, but he makes himself watch her climb into bed beside him. Blinks sluggishly, owlishly, as she gets situated.

It's all wrong, though, her thin, tiny frame curled up beside him where Jacob should be, huge and scarred, but it's better than nothing. She lets him grasp at her arms, pulling her closer. “I'm not usually this Weak, I swear.”

“I don't think you're Weak,” she whispers. Her voice is far away, and he can barely feel the hand that pets across his cheeks. “I don't think you've been Weak for a very long time. Sleep, Staci.”

-

He dreams that he hadn't been strong enough to overpower Eli. He dreams that it's his neck ringed in purple, his neck snapped at an unnatural, ungodly angle. He dreams that his soul's stuck in the Wolf's Den, damned by his actions, by what God knew he would later do for Jacob Seed.

As Tammy tortures Jacob in her God damn Cheeseburger kiddie pool, Staci wails and wails.

Jacob's eyes are on him the entire time, the only person in the God damn bunker that can see him.

“I'm sorry, I'm sorry,” he cries. Tears hot and miserable on his face, his hands clipping through Jacob's chest, his shoulder, whenever he tries to touch him.

“You're Weak. Fucking disgusting,” Jacob hisses, voice bitter and distorted, and again Tammy believes his words to be for her.

She ups the voltage one last time, and Staci watches, frozen, as Jacob shakes and shakes and shakes, until suddenly he stops.

The Resistance throws a party after. Staci throws up.

-

He remembers his dream when he claws his way back to consciousness.

The sun's high in the sky and he's alone in his bed. No Faith. No Jacob. The sheets beside him are cool to the touch when he drags his hand across them. Staci's miserably reminded of that first morning after with Jacob, alone in Jacob's room without the vaguest of ideas as to what would be in store for him.

He lays there for some time, staring at the ceiling. _You're Weak. Fucking Disgusting._ Jacob's voice rings in his head, pounding in his skull in time with the pressure building behind his eyes.

He feels marginally better, somehow. Rested, but groggy, like he's hungover.

After a shower that takes him forever to get through—dutifully ignoring Jacob's bath products, his towel hanging on the back of the bathroom door—Staci peters down the stairs and towards the kitchen. He finds Faith there, looking worse for wear. Rumpled like she never is, her hair flat and her eyes dull. She's got a coffee cup clutched in both hands, hovering low before her chin, like it's a lifeline, like it's the only thing keeping her upright.

“You okay?” Staci asks, his voice gravelly, scratchy. Sore for some reason. He's heartened by the promise of coffee, and shuffles over towards the pot, intent on fixing a cup of his own.

“Are _you_ okay?” Her hazel eyes are bloodshot as she takes him in, the curl of his dripping long hair, the little space between his shoulder blades that wasn't dried enough before he threw a shirt on. It's not even his shirt, Jacob's she thinks based on the way it drowns him.

He makes an inquisitive sound, projects it so it'll be heard over the tinkling of his spoon against the ceramic of his mug.

“You kept me up all night.” Staci stills, the coffee still swirling even though his spoon has ceased its movements. “Talking in your sleep, flailing.” She doesn't mention the crying, or the fact that he woke up half the Ranch. “Because of the drugs I couldn't wake you up but I couldn't _leave you_ like that.” He can hear her rustling, imagines she's rubbing at her face like Jacob so often does. A family tic. Even if she's not blood, Faith has spent more time at St. Francis's than Joseph has, oftentimes tucked under Jacob's wing.

When his body unfreezes, he mumbles an apology and goes back to fixing his drink. The spoon shakes in his grip, clinking against the walls of the mug for an entirely different reason.

“Whatever Jacob's doing, it better be worth it,” he hears her say, almost to herself.

-

She doesn't try to drug him the following night, just follows him from his study and into bed.

“If he's not back by the end of the night tomorrow, I'm afraid I'll have to contact the Father,” she whispers in the dark. She sounds genuinely sorry, but her hands are tied. If the Resistance got wind of two of the three regions being compromised, even in their own compromised state they might try to strong arm their way in.

It might be too late for Jacob, wherever he is. Was. Is.

But maybe with the proper guidance, Staci can be salvaged.

“It's okay,” he answers. It's been five days without word. Even Jacob's Faithful are getting anxious, just as desperate for word as Staci is. They call every few hours to exchange information, but there's not much to say beyond, _Nope, still nothing_.

Faith's blurry before him, curled tight against his chest. Her hair is clean and smells like his shampoo, and she's finally, _finally_ out of her signature dress—he'd managed to talk her into wearing a clean set of Staci's pajamas, a pair of his sweatpants and an old, scavanged F.A.N.G. center t-shirt, faded with age, stained with bleach. The absence of her dress, her armor, softens her, makes her appear even younger than she already does.

“I don't want to lose another brother,” she says as she presses her face to his throat. He can feel the dampness of her eyes against his Adam's apple, but she doesn't let her tears fall. “If he goes, then you'll go, and where does that leave me? The Father's too much for me by myself.”

His eyelids are getting heavier and heavier as he repeats himself, “It's okay.”

-

There's a telephone ringing, sharp and shrill in the darkness.

Faith protests against his neck as Staci shimmies himself free. His legs wobble beneath his body for the first few steps, but he's as steady as he can be by the time he reaches the phone.

The moon's high in the sky still, meaning they haven't been asleep for very long.

He rubs his eye with the heel of his hand as he slowly picks up the phone and puts it to his ear. He expects it to be Jacob's Faithful calling for another anxious, fruitless check-in, or possibly the Father.

What he gets is Jacob himself, manic and crooning into the phone.

“Y'there, Peaches?” Jacob asks. His voice immediately wakes Staci up, but the relief he feels has his legs threatening to give out. He sits down heavily in a nearby armchair, listening to Jacob breathe and cackle to himself.

“Jacob,” Staci sobs. He grips the phone in his hands so tightly his knuckles begin to blanch. In the darkness, Staci can just make out Faith beginning to stir to life. “Where are you? Are you okay? Jesus fucking Christ, Jacob.”

“I've got a surprise for you,” Jacob tells him, ignoring all of his questions. In the background, Staci can make out the whistling of wind coming in through an open car window. There's something else, something harder to peg—it sounds like muffled banging. The distant striking of something solid against metal.

“A surprise?” Faith's at his knees, head turned toward the receiver in attempt to listen in. Staci meets her halfway, curling forward towards her. Their foreheads press, and they share a relieved look before anger builds in Staci's chest, righteous and scorching. “A _surprise_? It's been five days, Jacob, where the fuck—”

“Not very Heraldic of you, Peaches.” There's the distinct sound of Jacob sucking on the filter of a cigarette. Staci imagines he can hear the cherry of it burning as Jacob inhales. “Language, language, language. What would the Father say?”

“Where are you?” Staci hisses. Jacob sounds completely out of it, and Staci blinks as he wonders if Jacob's managed to sleep the entire time he's been gone. Exhausted and out of it like Staci's been, but loose and on his own. Snippy and trigger happy without anyone to reign him in.

“Possibly what Joseph would say,” Jacob muses, conceding. He hums and taps his finger against the steering wheel while the background noises Staci couldn't fully identify begins again. “Oh well. Be ready for me in less than an hour, Peaches. What I've got is worth it, I promise. Had to search really, really fucking hard, but I found it.”

“Jacob—”

“Less than an hour, Peaches. With bells on.”

-

They're sitting on the front porch curled into each other, sitting with a tarp beneath them to protect them from the snow, and a blanket around them to protect them from the wind, thirty five minutes later when headlights break through the darkness. The car's coming at them fast, speeding down recently plowed streets with reckless abandon. It fishtails a few times but always rights itself before spinning out completely.

When the car's approaching the Ranch's main front driveway, Staci's breath stutters in his throat.

“It can't be,” he whispers.

“What?” Faith asks.

“I'm pretty sure that's my fucking car.”

It's bright yellow, just like his old X-Terra. Staci rises to his feet with Faith by his side, the blanket slipping off his shoulders. He swallows around his heart in his throat and slowly makes his way down the stairs as surely enough, his obnoxious yellow car is parked before him.

His Abuela's rosary sways back and forth from around his rearview mirror.

Jacob flies out of the driver's seat, a cigarette in his hand. He takes one last long pull before flicking it away from his body, and it lands somewhere to his right, sizzling out into the snow. The smoke leaves his mouth in a white cloud as he exhales, fragrant and strong as it curls up and around Staci.

“Miss me?” Jacob asks. He spreads his arms wide and grins.

 _I'm going to kill you_ , Staci thinks.

“Tsk, tsk, tsk, not before you see what I brought you!” Staci must've said that out loud. Staci laughs hysterically as he digs his hands into his eyes. When he opens them again, Jacob's arms have lowered, but now he's beckoning Staci forward. “C'mere, first.”

Jacob's mouth taste like cigarettes and something weirdly sweet when it meets Staci's own. It's an odd combination, strong and cloying, but Staci doesn't pull away. He presses himself bodily against Jacob and shudders as he's enveloped in his arms. Staci greedily takes all that he can get: Jacob's tongue warm in his mouth, Jacob's hum of pleasure against his lips, Jacob's hands cradling the back of his head, his lower back, urging him closer.

When they break for air, some of the manic energy seems to have seeped out of Jacob's body. “Missed you,” he whispers, nuzzling into Staci's cheek.

“Don't fucking _do that_ , Jacob. We – we didn't know if you were alive or dead. Jesus. I barely slept while you were gone, drove everyone crazy.” Staci grabs fistfuls of Jacob's jacket to keep himself upright. He touches him mindlessly, worried that he might be hallucinating.

“Couldn't sleep at all,” Jacob tells him. “First the excitement kept me up, the thrill of the chase. Then once I had to hunker down I just couldn't shut down long enough to—anyway. I'm back now. Wanna see what I brought?” He pulls himself out of Staci's grip, almost faltering when Staci protests pitifully.

But this is worth it. It's been worth all of it—the separation, the inability to sleep, all of the fucking driving, the energy drinks and nicotine he used to keep himself alert making him feel like some God damn wound up psycho Looney Toon.

It's worth it, and it might be the most romantic fucking thing Jacob Seed has ever done in his life.

From this distance, Staci can see the exhaustion bruises dark beneath Jacob's eye, like he's been punched. After a second glance, Staci's sure that at least one of the bruises _is_ actually a bruise, like someone punched him in the face. There are other marks on his face, like a healing split in his lip and a gash with a butterfly bandage on it cutting clean through Jacob's left eyebrow, the one above Jacob's shiner. “Have you been fighting? Are you okay?”

“Not now. Later, I promise. Just c'mere, okay?” He beckons Staci forward again, fingers quivering as he motions Staci forward. When Staci comes to him at the trunk of his car, Jacob kisses him hard. “Now, you'll remember—”

Staci nearly jumps out of his skin when the banging starts. He reaches for a gun that's not there, that's currently up on his bedside table, but Jacob is unfazed by it. Amused, even, if the crooked grin on his face is anything to go by.

“Is there—is there someone in the trunk?” Staci asks once his heart calms down.

“You have to look for yourself,” Jacob sing-songs. He theatrically motions to the trunk and moves out of the way so Staci can grab for the handle. With bated breath, he watches as Staci licks his lips and eases the trunk door open.

Hog tied and gagged in the trunk of Staci's obnoxious yellow X-Terra is his fucking _father_.

“Oh my God,” Staci whispers.

“Yeah?” Jacob eggs, stepping close to Staci's side. He admires his handwork and waves at Vincent Pratt as he stares, terrified. Fingers wiggling, infantile and taunting.

“Oh my _God_.” He clamps his hand over his mouth as his father's eyes round on him. The recognition is slow to dawn on his face, but Staci practically sees the light bulb go off above his head when he realizes who Staci is. He tries to scurry backward, scurry away, but there's nowhere to go, nowhere to hide.

“What? What is it?” He hears Faith call.

“Come see for yourself,” Jacob answers, his voice dripping with pride. He rubs circles into Staci's back and kisses the corner of his mouth, nuzzling against him again. “So? How'd I do?”

Before she leaves the porch, Faith gives instructions to someone—some of the Faithful on patrol or that had been awaken by the commotion, Staci guesses. Once at his side, Faith links their arms and asks, “Who _is_ that?”

“It's my father.” Staci's mouth won't fully close, he just keeps gaping and gaping. Jaw slack as he watches his father frantically look from him to Jacob and back. Trapped like a quartered animal, ready for slaughter.

_When this is all done, when I've destroyed what's remaining of the Resistance, we'll track down Daddy Dearest, huh? Carve his heart out for you after I feed him his own dick._

_What if he's dead?_

_Grave desecration._

“Holy shit, you remembered.” His eyes are misty when he leans into Jacob, pushing his face into the column of Jacob's bearded throat. “Holy _shit_ , how did you find him? I didn't even tell you his name, I—”

“Doesn't matter,” Jacob whispers. “You told me about him that night on the roof, and then again recently and I—I knew I had to get him. To find him. Bring you his fucking bones if he had already died, Staci, shit.”

The _love_ that blooms in Staci's chest has his entire body on the fritz. He digs desperate hands into the fabric of Jacob's shirt and pulls them flush together. Pets every inch of Jacob that he can, murmuring his love mindlessly as he goes. Jacob's body is warm against him, right and huge and something Staci never, ever wants to miss again.

Faith extracts herself, presses a single kiss to each of their temples, and calls one of the Faithful to meet her at the hood of the car. She gives them careful instructions to set up one of John's confession rooms in the basement, the biggest, best equipped one that they can find, and to give their Heralds some space unless requested. Then she's moving again, back to her spot on the porch. The blanket's not as warm around her as Staci or Jacob, but it's enough for now.

They deserve their moment, their fucked love and devotion. Faith thinks of Tracey and then resolutely doesn't. Doesn't want to taint the joy of this moment with her own tucked away misery.

“Thank you,” Staci whispers against Jacob's pulse. He revels in the shudder it gets him, in Jacob's hand gripping hard at the back of Staci's shirt. “God, Jacob.”

“Yours, Staci. Not gonna let a thing fucking touch you, huh?” Jacob's eyes are bright and fiery when Staci pulls back to look at him. He trails his touch down Staci's cheek, grips his chin and pulls him in for a kiss.

“Yours,” Staci echoes.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i wrestled with whether or not jacob was ooc at the end, but jacob's a super theatrical messed up dude, and while a lot of the fandom portrays him at stiff and super cold, i think he's a lot more animated and malicious than that? and combine that kinda personality with lack of sleep and too much caffeine, and you've literally got a demented, cracked out looney toon hell bent on spiriting away his significant other's shitty fucking biological father (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧
> 
> this has been so much more than i ever anticipated it would be? it was only supposed to be a oneshot, guys, and we ended up with 100k!! what the fuck!! i'm blown away by the response this has received, from y'all here and on [tumblr](http://boneforts.tumblr.com) and from my fantastic, beautiful, crazy fucking friends who've supported me this entire time with this MONSTER of a fic
> 
> there COULD be add-ons later, perhaps the actual scene with staci's father or a bit of the future stuff i've already been working out in my head. it all just depends on my muse and whether or not i've got anything left in me now that i've finally managed to bring this to a close. (✿ ♥‿♥)
> 
> thank y'all again, so much


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